August 14, 2020

Canada & United States To Extend Border Closing

1 In what has become a regular ritual around the 15th of each month, the United States and Canada have agreed to extend the closure of the border between the two countries for non-essential travel another 30 days, until September 21.

The two nations will reevaluate next month before making a decision on reopening on September 22. In other words, Canada will decide if it’s willing to take on the risk of letting Americans into the country.

Americans who are returning to America and Canadians who are returning to Canada are exempt from the border closure as are Americans passing through en route to Canada. The Toronto Maple Leafs who were eliminated from the NHL playoffs last week by the Columbus Blue Jackets were reportedly pleading their case that the Blue Jackets should not have been considered essential travel and were not in the country legally… and that they should have to forfeit the series to the Leafs. It is rumored that many in the Canadian government support this interpretation, but the Quebecois are strongly against it.


Virgin Australia’s Loss is Rex’s Gain

2 Regional Express Airlines — Rex — is the world’s largest operator of Saab 340s, flying around Australia to small towns and underserved airports 36 passengers at a time. Now it’s getting cheeky.

The airline announced last year that it planned to compete with the big boys in Australia and begin flying the vaunted triangle route between Brisbane, Melbourne, and Sydney. In order to do so, it needed bigger planes and had been in the market for up to ten A320s or 737s but had not yet found a seller at a suitable price.

Enter Virgin Australia. With the airline undergoing a reorganization following voluntary administration, it is shedding airplanes as fast as it can — no matter the buyer. And despite Rex looking to buy the planes for the sole purpose of competing with Virgin Australia, VA’s creditors want their money and Rex’s money looks as good as anyone else’s.

While taking Virgin Australia’s former planes doesn’t mean the airline will keep the same configuration or its business class up front, that can’t be ruled out either.


EasyJet Raises $771 Million Through Sale & Leaseback

3 EasyJet successfully completed a sale and leaseback deal for 23 of its aircraft to raise $771 million in cash.

The final part of the deal to close was for five A321neo aircraft with Jin Shan 37 Ireland Company, a unit of BOCOMM Leasing, in return for $266 million in cash, with the aircraft leased back until each reaches around 10 years of age.

EasyJet has been looking to increase its cash positions in the wake of the pandemic and has done so successfully, now sitting on $3.15 billion in liquidty on-hand in addition to 416,000 bangers and 386,000 pounds of mash.


KLM Unilaterally Withholds Raise from Employees

4 As it works desperately to save money and reduce its daily cash burn, KLM is withholding a 2.5% raise that was due to kick in for employees this month. The raise was negotiated last year, long before the pandemic and the disappaerance of almost all international air travel demand.

The airline has reduced its daily cash burn to €10 million per day but says it still cannot afford to pay out the raise. KLM says it went to its unions to negotiate a suitable compromise for all parties but that the unions did not want to discuss the situation — causing the airline to act on its own.

KLM ended June with €1.5 billion cash on-hand plus the world’s largest collection of miniature blue delft houses in the world.


Qantas Ready to Meet Your Holiday Shopping Needs

5 It’s never too early to begin holiday shopping for loved ones — or your family — and Qantas is ready to take care of your needs right here and right now. With the airline shuttering its international route network through at least March, it has thousands of excess premium class amenity kits that are gathering dust.

In order to solve this problem and raise some much-needed cash, the airline is selling amenity kits for A$25 — which comes out to just $18 in U.S. dollars. The kits, of which sales are capped at 10 per customer, include:

  • One pair of Qantas Business Class PJ’s
  • One Business Class amenity kit with mini ASPAR products
  • 12 individually wrapped Tim Tam biscuits
  • A 200g pack of First Class smoked Almonds
  • A pack of 10 T2 lemongrass and ginger teabags
  • A wallaby (or not)

The price is a steal for the Tim Tam biscuits alone, but make sure you act fast — only 133 days left until Christmas (132 if you’re in Australia)!


Airline Potpourri

  • Air Canada is resuming its 3x weekly service to Delhi tomorrow, August 15.
  • China Airlines is considering a $68 million cash injection into its LCC Tigerair Taiwan, the last of the surviving Tigerairs.
  • Qatar is resuming daily service to London/Gatwick next week.
  • TUIfly removed its long-haul schedule from Dusseldorf that was scheduled to begin in November.
  • Turkish is delaying the start of service to both Newark and Vancouver — two places that have never been confused for one another — to October.
  • Vietnam Airlines posted a loss of $284 million for the first half of 2020.

Andrew’s Moment of Levity

I asked my realtor if a new place I like would cost me more because it has a chimney. She said “Nope, it’s on the house.”