Gloom and doom could soon turn to sunny skies for U.S. airlines. It’s another story for international carriers, but everyone is managing heavy debt loads from COVID. Carriers will be more selective about what routes they fly in the future.
U.S. passenger travel seems capped at about 70% of last year’s level until there is a coronavirus vaccine. International travel is a dumpster fire — carriers heavily exposed to international markets will take longer to fix their balance sheets.
There was a marked difference in how Canada and the U.S. reacted to the opportunity of transforming passenger aircraft into twin-deck freighters by removing the seats. One country moved very fast. The other was slow to the party.
Critics argue proposal does little to address global warming.
Airlines know 2020 will be financially bleak but are seeing some green shoots of customer activity as encouraging.
The current $61 billion set-aside for the domestic airline industry left out the forwarders.
Airlines and employees gave a big sigh of relief when Congress recently passed a major industry bailout, but feelings turned to frustration when the Trump administration decided to limit the cash payouts.
