Global airlines need a fresh cash injection worth billions to stave off the increasing bankruptcy threat from Covid-19, the International Air Transport Association has warned, with the industry set to burn a further US$77 billion, or US$300,000 a minute, in the second half of 2020.
The already ruinous haemorrhaging of cash is having severe consequences on several affiliates in the AirAsia Group, one of the region’s pioneering low-cost airlines, which shut down its Japan operations on Monday, while its Indian arm is no longer being financially supported. Remaining the outlier, China was “in better shape”, IATA said, given the near full recovery of the profit-generating domestic market, further stimulated by the “golden week” holidays.
Wage subsidy schemes – a key plank of the bailout money for offsetting labour costs – were starting to expire with extensions now required, the industry body said.