Just when things were looking up, the aviation industry has been hit by a double blow this week.
OAG’s John Grant reported on Monday that the first official week of Summer (Saturday 20 June marked the official start of summer in the northern hemisphere) has resulted in the largest week-on-week growth in capacity during the COVID-19 event with some 8.2 million seats added back around the globe and a week-on-week percentage increase of 21%. OAG’s report shows that in South Asia capacity has doubled week-on-week with an explosion of capacity in India. China’s domestic capacity also appears to have bounced back despite Beijing’s partial lockdown after a flare up in coronavirus infections. And in Europe capacity increased by nearly 50% as many carriers upped capacity with Ryanair leading the way.
However, this good news was swiftly followed by a reminder that the coronavirus pandemic continues to wreak havoc on the global aviation community. On Tuesday, the aerospace giant Airbus announced that it will cut 15,000 jobs over the next year due to a dip in aircraft orders. France and Germany will be the worst hit with 5,000 jobs expected to be cut at Airbus sites in both countries. A further 1,700 job cuts are expected in the UK, 900 in Spain and 1,300 positions at other Airbus sites worldwide.
Hot on the heels of the Airbus announcement low-cost giant easyJet revealed that it has begun consultations on plans to close three bases at Stansted, Newcastle and Southend. Johan Lundgren, easyJet CEO, commented, “These are very difficult proposals to put forward in what is an unprecedented and difficult time for the airline and the industry as a whole.” Lundgren added, “These proposals are no reflection on our people at Stansted, Southend and Newcastle, who have all worked tirelessly and have been fully committed to providing great service for our customers.”
Although no longer to be used as a base, Stansted will remain on easyJet’s route network. In a statement, Stansted Airport – for which easyJet accounted for 99% of passengers last year using a mix of based and non-based aircraft – said: “EasyJet’s decision not to base aircraft at Stansted is another example of the impact that the pandemic is currently having on the aviation industry.
“We look forward to working with easyJet to retain routes that are operated by aircraft based elsewhere in their network and growing their operation at Stansted again in the future.”
Meanwhile, London Southend, which reopened its doors to passengers for the first time in three months on 1 July, chose not to reference the loss of the low-cost giant. Glyn Jones, CEO Stobart Aviation, which operates the London hub, said: “We have worked extremely hard to ensure measures are in place to create a biosphere within the terminal, delivering confidence to our customers.”
Services are expected to resume throughout July from airline partners including Ryanair, Wizz Air and Flyone plus a new route to Norway which will start in August with Wideroe.
The aviation industry continues to face major headwinds in its road to recovery, but the green shoots are there and recover it will!
