HOTR: American sees virtually no travel for up to 7 months

By the Leeham News staff

April 7, 2020, © Leeham News: “Nobody’s traveling in the next 30 or 60 days,” said Vasu Raja, American Airlines Group Inc.’s senior vice president for network strategy. “But nobody is really making any plans to go travel in the next 90 to 150 days, either.

So reported the Wall Street Journal Sunday.

That basically takes you through the end of the year.

Singapore will suspend its Changi Airport Terminal 2 for 18 months from May 1. (Associated Press.)

Airlines

Garuda’s auditor issued a “going concern” opinion. EasyJet’s largest shareholder says it should cancel orders for 107 Airbus A320 family members, calling this a “useless” order now.

In the easyJet case, this may be more of being part of a long-running battle by the shareholder, Stelios Haji-Ioannou, to reduce the size of the Airbus order. He’s been fighting with management for years over direction of the airline.

In addition to being the largest shareholder, he is also the founder of the airline.

On the lighter side of this crisis, KLM posted an interesting read about how it parks its airplanes, complete with photos.

Boeing suspends production indefinitely

Boeing announced Sunday it continues its suspended production in the greater Seattle area indefinitely. Airbus said it can’t get the same level of parts and components from suppliers it had pre-lockdowns. Production rates are going to come down sharply.

Since the beginning of the Jet age, the worst aircraft delivery slump happened between 1968 and 1972.

Excluding the USSR, overall jet aircraft deliveries fell from 716 in 1968 to 228 in 1972, or a 68% drop. If we restrict ourselves to Airbus, Boeing and McDonnell-Douglas, the drop was from 660 to 173, or 74%.

Airbus and Boeing delivered 1,532 aircraft in 2018 (1,674 jet aircraft that year, including other OEMs). A 74% drop would mean annual deliveries of barely more than 400 aircraft for Airbus and Boeing.

With the announcement that Boeing is suspending production in Everett indefinitely, the production bottom might come this year and be even larger.

Airbus yesterday suspended production in Mobile (AL) and Bremen, Germany, for most of the rest of this month.

 

 

 

 

32 Comments on “HOTR: American sees virtually no travel for up to 7 months

  1. Anyway, I don’t think borders will reopen for passengers until there’s a vaccine available…

    • Don’t count on it. On Tuesday, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Anthony Fauci told US senators, “It will take at least a year and a half to have a vaccine we can use.” Preflight testing of passengers and crew combined with hygiene measures should be an effective method.

      • One group thinks that they will have 1 million vaccinations by fall.

        Widespread for all a 1.5 years, but human trials under way and work has been done on the same methodology previously.

        I agree Dec would be earliest things start to resume.

        But vaccinate first responders and then those with risk factors first and the issues become pretty small.

        I think Fauci is takign the right approach, the old Boeing idea of under promise and over deliver.

        They have almost 100 people under test right now with two different vaccines. This is not drug company setup to make a big killing, its Gates and government behind it and its going to move a lot faster than many think.

        Agreed its going to take time to work out of the huge drop in the US, but while I don’t buy a couple of months, a lot of background work was done on this (but not finished) and the basics are solid for no reactions to the approaches being taken.

        Ebola variant has been used (two acualy) and they are using the same basic structure and those have been minimal side affects.

        Stay tuned of course. Its what I think not a given.

        • “.. its Gates and government behind it ..”

          assuming that Bill/Melinda Gates are philanthropic humanists is a major intellectual misstep.
          Bill Gates as a dyed in the wool sociopath hasn’t changes his spots in any way.
          control freak. dangerous.

  2. Reading the quote I don’t get to “sees virtually no travel for up to 7 months”. All I get to is there aren’t any plans out that far, not that this is a forecast of demand for the period.

    I find the Changi news the most interesting as it is the first useful proxy I’ve seen for demand forecast out that far.

  3. Qatar Airways is increasing flights as they are open in Doha and transit passengers from all over the world.
    https://samchui.com/2020/03/25/qatar-airways-announces-capacity-increases/#.Xow8qJ77K9c
    Australia has around 250,000 tourists atva time who it wants to leave, another 1 mill students or working visa holders who situation is precarious. Repeated in many other countries
    On the other side airlines have destroyed trust from many passengers by cancelling flights and holding payment.

  4. “Excluding the USSR, overall jet aircraft deliveries fell from 716 in 1968 to 228 in 1972, or a 68% drop. If we restrict ourselves to Airbus, Boeing and McDonnell-Douglas, the drop was from 660 to 173, or 74%.”

    Uh, the first Airbus ever entered service in 1974. Did you perhaps mean Lockheed?

  5. As soon as it is legal to travel, I plan to travel to see any family who are willing to socialize. Barring extended state restrictions, I am seeing late May or June.
    The dow is up and the quantitative analysts are weighing in somewhat more optimistically. If this is a numbers game, I would believe them. If this is a biblical thing, well, all bets are off.

    • While overall healthy, I have two risk factors and I am not going anywhere until the vaccination is available.

      Any unneeded travel puts others at risk for no reason.

      • I’ll comply with all federal and state regulations. Feel free to write your representatives.

        • Better to go with the intent and not the letter.

          If you just affected yourself, that is your call, when you affect others that is our call.

          But having seen people in action its what I expect.

      • @transworld

        ‘any un needed travel puts others at risk for no reason’

        -there is no reason for un needed travel by definition, but all depends on what ‘needed’ is taken to mean

        -to shut down un needed (who decides what is needed) air travel, by implication, involves shutting down all un needed other travel, metro systems buses, etc? or not?

        -to shut down all un essential (?) travel, worldwide? for up to a year, or or two, in any case for an indefinite period of time ‘until a vaccine’?

        -military transport needed check, oil workers needed check, heathcare needed check, energy production yes, phone, yes, food workers needed check, farm workers needed check, car factories needed check, pharma yes, finance yes, politics yes, software yes…

        Where are the no’s? Restaurants? Cafés, Malls? Movies? Parks? Jogging Baseball? All the constituents of The great american way- NO?

        Why not – throw away the residue of the ages and plan a new way

        But the no ‘un needed’ thing , if it is to effect any meaningful % of activity or the population, would close down a very large percentage of the world economy and result in a far greater number of deaths than ever this bug, or the next wave bug next month or year, could ever cause

        And – what happens if, after a month or a year or whatever time it takes, it seems no vaccine is available? – Plan B is..?

  6. You would think that after so many countries have Covid-19 that some mathematical models could predict pretty well the time each counrty will reach a “safe” level and hence let people out and fill the planes.

    • Mathematical models can’t predict the actions of people like Ted.

      So he could travel and create an entire outbreak chain.

      If everyone behaved exactly as the best practices dictate, the models would be closer.

      There is simply too much variation in behavior and compliance that its a huge range.

      The safe point will be when either 70% have had it or we get vaccinations, whichever comes first (I am absolutely hoping for vaccination)

      At that point it becomes a normal life risk factor.

      Climate change is going to be thrown off by this event as well. Not a bad thing though hugely costly in people terms. Models cannot predict a C-19 event.

      Weather reports has super computers crunching the whole data set and on far too many occasions I have seen sun predicted and its pouring rain (and they never changed the forecast)

      Likely they could have every square inch of the planet covered and still be wrong.

      • The models will include an average behavor of the population in each region. That will include “Ted’s” and others in a normal distribution. Soon there will be immuity test certified so gouvernment Airport security can look up if each traveller are tested immune as part of the security checks.
        While they do the blood test they can DNA sequence each inhabitant and get the fingerprint as well making future crime solving quicker. (And for Dictators wanting to jail all inhabitants of certian decent)

      • Hey, how come I have to be the poster boy for the spread of infectious disease? I guess I deserved that.
        Maybe I will spread love and good vibes. 🙂

        • I agree, mostly love and good vibes…. However you also have a good and short name.
          Still mathematical models with all the experience we have in statistics globally (we can create Pictures of the body including the brain from a few MRI sensors using Fourier analysis and statistics) and every country have a batch of professors specialicing in panemic diseases getting help from other mathematicians. They have most likely checked models against experiments (where huge amounts of small animals get infected)

    • Why? The ony large country (China) to yet offer an indication of the shape of the plateau and down slope, and therefore when a chosen level will be reached, is hardly representative or known for its transparency.

      Even if it was we’d need to factor in the significant heterogeneity (different housing, different social customs, different climate, different treatment, different lockdown timings etc.) within and between countries and not knowing what % of people now have antibodies, whether the antibodies provide protection, if so for how long and so on.

      And on top of that we’d need to factor in what economies (spec. bank foundations) can withstand.

  7. High probability that when all is said and done Boeing will shut down the Everret 787 line.

    They made sure that Everett could not mfg the -10. With the reduction in 787 down to 4 a month (estimated) in the near future and no more than 8 I have felt long term, only one assembly line is needed and Charleston can make the -8/9/10.

    However there was a lawsuit and an agreement and will that be negotiated out (next aircraft HAS to be build in Washington)

    • Renton factory is old?

      Moses Lake is a hike for workers, mebbe a high-speed rail line is needed – politicians like such.

      Oh wait! lemme rethink that. 🙂

  8. Most governments failed to properly prepare despite SARS, MERS, avian flu, swine flu, ….. But one entrepreneur saved the day, along with a government that did not get in his way much:

    https://fee.org/articles/a-government-monopoly-led-to-botched-covid-19-test-kits-but-private-labs-are-now-saving-the-day/?fbclid=IwAR2Z74F1W549IW_3Bpix9c0Zuf0VmYB_trA6xnerftVZhA241RTN25jf-f0
    https://www.technologyreview.com/s/615323/why-the-cdc-botched-its-coronavirus-testing/
    Despite previous epidemics like SARS, MERS, avian flu, swine flue (noting INFLUENZA) result in death of many people each season, 2017-2018 was bad in northern hemisphere). Collectivists take note.

    But private organizations here and there are stepping up, small and large. South Koreas was helped by a gutsy entrepreneur who was capable and proactive: https://profitableandmoral.com/reason-independent-thinking-production-and-freedom-inspiration-from-a-south-korean-biotech-company/

    Statistics are incomplete and untrustworthy. Yet even health officials are ‘talking heads’ with them, filling bandwidth that should be used for education.
    Statistics for death related to influenza vary widely, for example the _rate_ is wildly different between the similar societies of Canada and US.
    Italians statistics have been challenged, media are accused of exaggerating by reporting deaths _with_ COVID-19 infection whereas death certificates show the end cause such as pneumonia. (The distinction may be moot, but calls into question what governments are basing their actions on.)
    https://nationalpost.com/news/world/utterly-unreliable-the-mystery-behind-the-true-covid-19-death-rate

    • Lots of distractions posted globally.
      A rush of Anti China hitpieces all ignoring fact and working on emotionalities have been released over the last week. That is a carefully controlled camapign.

      And those are often carefully “constructed”, synthetic.
      What irks me is giving in to those would aggravate the outcome further. Now why would any one do that?
      Just plain dumb ( “Just a flue Trump” ) or are there more sinister forces at work? ( dead New Yorkers are so many less DEM votes Trump )

      • Keith:

        Looks like you have your own take on this.

        But slinging mud out does not add to the discussion. If a person dies of Pneumonia because they had Covd-19, then Covd-19 is the death cause not pneumonia that they would not of had if not for C-19.

        It can’t be stopped, with good management it can be slowed down and contained. The biggest failing is management failure.
        Same for all people in ill health.

        And its not in place of influenza, its on top of that, so it sucks its own massive resources out of the system that otherwise would be available and are not.

        If someone dies because they could not get treatment because C-19 has the system clogged, then that too is a C-19 death.

        It won’t be reported that way but it is.

        • Objection!

          I am not ‘slinging mud’, I am trying to provide perspective.

          Do your homework and look up death rates from the killer corona virus INFLUENZA, including the 2017-2018 season in which 60,000 deaths were labelled as due to it, in the US.

          (And look at the discrepancy between death _rates_ in that season between the quite similar societies of Canada and US. That suggests different approaches to recording cause of death.)

      • Your message came through without real points.

        Of course you wouldn’t want to read the recommendations from experienced epidemiologists I linked to.

        The cost to health from COVID-19 alarmism will be very high – people weating themselves out from working three jobs in the economic depression, life-fostering operations delayed – some will die on waiting lists, teeth lost as repair is delayed, resources diverted from the proper approach of actually protecting the vulnerable and from education.,

    • Note that COVID-19 is much like the killer corona virus called INFLUENZA, most symptoms are the same, big risk is pneumonia in both cases.

      Buttmouths have damaged their lungs, many people have weak hearts thus inadequate blood flow through lungs (perhaps it’s a good idea for those people to have supplemental oxygen handy).

      Know the main symptoms, monitor yourself (body temperature and blood oxygen level), know your body. (Including allergies – its tree pollen season on the wet coast, anything that restricts breathing passages is of concern IMO. Hopefully having had blood tests in recent years – undiagnosed thus untreated diabetes increases swelling, though it may be correlated with poor diet and lack of exercise: obesity.)

      Take care: https://www.forbes.com/sites/paulhsieh/2020/03/16/tips-for-staying-out-of-the-er-during-the-coronavirus-covid-19-pandemic/#7ea8b70c40c5

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