Global air transport hit hard by COVID-19, says IATA
PARIS (AFP) – The COVID19 pandemic has battered the air transport sector by all but grounding planes, resulting in layoffs, bankruptcies and rescue plans.
The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has estimated global airlines will lose $314 billion (286 billion euros) in 2020 revenues.
That's a 55 percent dive compared to 2019, and air traffic will not bounce back to where it stood before the virus until 2023, the IATA says.
Here's a recap of some of the major casualties:
Latin America's largest airline
LATAM, which has more than 42,000 employees, became the latest carrier to file for bankruptcy on Tuesday.
It entered into a voluntary reorganization under Chapter 11 protection in the United States, which allows a company that is no longer able to repay its debt to restructure without pressure from creditors.
This comes just two weeks after Colombia's Avianca, which has 20,000 staff, also filed for bankruptcy in the US to reorganize its debt.
Cash-strapped giant Virgin Australia also collapsed on April 21, going into administration.
The airline had appealed for a Aus$1.4-billion ($930-million) loan to stay afloat, but the government refused to bail out the majority foreign-owned company.
The pandemic has also led to the collapse of South Africa's Comair and South African Airways (SAA), Britain's Flybe and four subsidiaries of Norwegian Air Shuttle in Sweden and Denmark.
Air Canada plans to lay off more than half of its workforce, or at least 19,000 employees. British Airways will shed 12,000 jobs or 30 percent of its workforce, US Delta Air Lines will carry out 10,000 redundancies (11 percent), while Scandinavia's SAS will lay
off 5,000 jobs (40 percent).
Other job losses will come at United Airlines in the US (3,450 officials), Britain's Virgin Atlantic (3,150), Ireland's Ryanair (3,000) and
Aer Lingus (900), Icelandair (2,000), Brussels Airlines (1,000), Hungary's Wizz Air (1,000) and Fiji Airways (758). The damage to the air sector extends beyond the airlines.