May 11, 2020

U.S. Airlines Favor Having TSA Conduct Temperature Screenings

1 Airlines For America (A4A), the trade group representing most US airlines stated that it is in favor of having TSA check the temperature of passengers and customer-facing employees for as long as needed through the COVID-19 outbreak.

At this point, nearly every airline is requiring a mask of its frontline staff and passengers while on-board the aircraft, and the airlines want to take it a step further, likely to help bolster traveler confidence more than anything.

A4A writes that “temperature checks are one of several public health measures recommended by the CDC amid the COVID-19 pandemic and will add an extra layer of protection for passengers as well as airline and airport employees.”

Short on funds, TSA seems to be warming to this idea since it can help produce revenue. The tentative plan (which we at Cranky Daily have just invented) is to allow touchless measurement for TSA Precheck customers while everyone else gets to do it the… old-fashioned way.


Airlines Are Trying to Raise Cash — They Aren’t Always Succeeding

2 Airlines are doing what they can to find new ways to inject much-needed cash into their outbreak-riddled operations, but not everyone is finding the success they crave.

United planned to raise cash via a sale of $2.25 billion of junk bonds but ultimately ended up pulling out of the deal at the last minute. United’s plan was to use the proceeds to refinance a one-year term loan for $2 billion that it signed with four banks on March 9, but ultimately the yield United would be required to pay proved to be too high for the airline to stomach. The failure can be pinned on prospective buyers not seeing enough value in the aircraft that United pledged for collateral. That means United will have to use other assets to secure funds in the future — barring some miraculous improvement in aircraft values — if it isn’t willing to pay the high rate.

United presently has $9.6 billion in liquidity, not including the potential CARES act loan from the federal government. United has raised $4 billion since March and recently sold 22 new Boeing aircraft — 787 Dreamliner & 737 Max jets — in a sales-leaseback deal with a unit of BOC Aviation Ltd.

Speaking of selling aircraft to BOC Aviation, Southwest entered into an agreement to sell 20 of its 737s in a leaseback agreement to the firm for $815 million. In this deal, which is common in the industry but unusual for Southwest, the airline receives the immediate cash generated by the sale while keeping the 20 aircraft in its fleet by immediately leasing them back from BOC.


Avianca Files for Bankruptcy Protection

3 Avianca, the second-largest airline in Latin America filed for bankruptcy protection in New York on Sunday after it failed to make a $65 million bond payment.

The second-longest continuously operating airline in the world behind KLM, Avianca has been asking for an aid package from the Colombian government to no avail. It has not flown a regularly-scheduled passenger flight since March and most of its 20,000 employees have not been receiving pay while the airline currently has $7.3 billion in debt.

United took a significant financial stake in the airline last May and had been expected to play the “sugar daddy” role while Avianca turned itself around. Now, in the firm grips of the COVID-19 slump, United lacks the ability to bail out Avianca when it needs bailing out itself. This leaves open the possibility for other suitors to make a play for the airline in bankruptcy. While we assume American might be interested, it doesn’t have the cash either.


Delta Files Final Flights for MD-88/90

4 Delta filed the schedule for its final flights with the MD-88 and MD-90 with both aircraft to be retired after wrapping up operations on June 2.

After flying out on the evening of June 1, a series of early morning flights returning to the Atlanta base will be the end of the road for the workhorse aircraft which have been a part of Delta’s fleet since April 1, 1987.

The final flights for the MD-88 will arrive in Atlanta at 850a and 855a respectively, as Delta 1987 from Hartford and Delta 80 from Washington/Dulles. The final MD-90 flight will operate as Delta 90 and will arrive Atlanta at 858a from Houston/Intercontinental.

This is truly the end of an era. Once Delta retires the fleet, there will be no airline flying more than a dozen examples. Most remaining operators are either cargo or charter carriers or they operate in places like Venezuela and Iran. All is not lost, however. The 717, last remaining heir in the Douglas Commercial Aircraft family, will continue to fly at both Delta and Hawaiian for the near future.


The Bright Side: TSA Screens 200,000 Passengers Sunday for Second Time in Three Days

5 It’s a milestone that in a pre-Covid world no one ever would have thought possible. Sunday was the second time in three days that more than 200,000 people filed through TSA checkpoints, the first time that’s occurred since March 25-26.

The number of passengers screened bottomed out on April 14 when only 87,534 went through checkpoints in the United States. The numbers have been slowly rising since then, with Friday’s number of just over 215,000 being the new high-water mark. With the total exceeding 200,000 again on Sunday, there are encouraging signs that air travel is coming back ever so slowly.

To be clear… we mean it when we say “slowly.” A year before achieving this 200,000 passenger mark, TSA screened more than 2.4 million passengers. There is a long way to go.


Airline Potpourri

  • Air Baltic will receive €250 million in aid from the Latvian Government.
  • Air New Zealand will add seven additional domestic routes back to its network this week bringing its total to 32.
  • Air Serbia plans a return of service with limited operations next week on May 18 with an increase in flights coming on June 1.
  • British Airways filed its June short-haul schedule which includes 316 weekly departures from Heathrow and the return of BA CityFlyer service from London City, Edinburgh and Glasgow.
  • China Airlines saw bizarro-world financials with cargo making up 88.9% of overall revenue in April including a 111% YoY increase in cargo revenue.
  • Czech Airlines will resume limited European short-haul service from its Prague (PRG) hub on May 18.
  • KLM has added 16 more routes from its Amsterdam hub, bringing its service levels up to 334 weekly flights to 47 European destinations.
  • Lufthansa will be up to 34 routes by the second half of May from its hubs in Frankfurt and Munich.
  • Ryanair is adding three more routes from London/Stansted (STN), returning this week to Bucharest (OTP) and Sofia (SOF), with daily flights to Porto (OPO) restarting on May 22.
  • SWISS will begin to add capacity back in June including 140 flights to 30 destinations from Zurich and 40 flights to 14 destinations from Geneva. The airline will maintain its 3x weekly service from Zurich to Newark as its lone link to the U.S. for the time being.

Andrew’s Moment of Levity

In honor of the passing of Jerry Stiller, seeing him break the unbreakable Julia Louis-Dreyfus will never not be comedy gold.