Airlines
Airborne: Are We There Yet?
Baxter Media invites you to attend an informative webinar next Wednesday (May 27) at 12 p.m. (EST). This is one you definitely won't want to miss. Aviation is a key component that supports the complete tourism experience that includes Hotels, Resorts, Cruise Lines, Attractions, Local Ground Operators, Car Rentals, Trains and Coaches. The multiple daily headlines around the health of the aviation industry continue to be impactful with seemingly no landing in sight yet. Service resumption delays, mergers, receivership announcements, refunds, face masks, empty middle seats. Can we...
Airline Update: AF Phases Out A380s
Air France-KLM Group has announced the end of Air France A380 operations. The phasing out of the A380s had by scheduled for the end of 2022, however, it now fits better with the Group’s fleet simplification strategy of making the fleet more competitive, by continuing its transformation with more modern, high-performance aircraft with a significantly reduced environmental footprint. It also noted that the decision also reflected the impact that the COVID-19 crisis was having on “anticipated activity levels.” Five of the Airbus A380 aircraft in the current fleet are owned by Air...
A Road Map For Restarting Aviation
IATA has unveiled details of its proposed temporary layered approach to biosecurity for re-starting passenger flights amid the COVID-19 crisis. Biosecurity for Air Transport: A Roadmap for Restarting Aviation outlines the association’s proposal for a layering of temporary biosecurity measures. The Roadmap aims to provide the confidence that governments will need to enable the re-opening of borders to passenger travel; and the confidence that travellers will need to return to flying. Alexandre de Juniac, IATA’s director general and CEO, said: “There is no single measure that...
LH Taking Off From Canada
Lufthansa says that it is planning to bolster the limited number of intercontinental flights to Canada with a resumption, in June, of service from Toronto. The carrier will ramp up with three weekly, non-stop flights from Toronto to Frankfurt beginning June 3. Additional Canadian flights are currently being evaluated and planned for later in the summer. The Toronto–Frankfurt flight adds a long-haul connection for Toronto-based travel to Europe, the Middle East, Africa and India. These include flights within Germany, as well as to cities in Austria, France, Italy, Spain and...
Air Canada Laying Off 20,000 As Of June 7
As Canadians prepared for the annual May 24 long weekend, media across the country began reporting the details of an Air Canada internal memo that indicates the carrier will be laying off 20,000 of its workers as the impact of COVID-19 cuts deep into its business. All of the company’s staff were advised in an internal memo of the layoffs which are effective June 7 and come following what the airline describes as a “fundamental review” of its business and the steps it has to take in order to emerge from the pandemic crisis and rebuild the airline. The numbers detailed in the...
Sunwing Celebrates The Frontline Heroes
It’s all about giving back for Sunwing, and it’s doing just that for frontline workers across Canada, giving away 100 all-inclusive vacations to Royalton Luxury Resorts. Sunwing’s Hero Vacations initiative calls on Canadians to nominate deserving frontline heroes who have helped their family or community fight the pandemic. Eligible nominees can be health care workers, emergency service providers or anyone who has helped keep Canada safe during this difficult time. Stephen Hunter, president and CEO of Sunwing, said of the initiative: “As a Canadian family-owned business,...
When Will Domestic Travel Start Again?
In a special report for Canadian Travel Press, Eric Barber writes that if the Canadian government was looking for any guidelines on how to put the travel and tourism industry in Canada back to work, they might want to consider a new report from Germany’s Kompetenzzentrum Tourismus des Tourismus and represents the first document in tourism that plots a timeline for the return of tourism in Germany based on select factors: politics, economics and science. The report identifies four phases of COVID-19, which are represented by Shutdown, Loosening, Revival & Normalization. ...
Need To Compete
IATA -- describing travel as being in a “free fall” and the airline industry as being “bare bones” due to the impact of COVID-19 -- is advising Caribbean governments to cut passenger taxes if they wish to be competitive when service is restored. Peter Cerda, IATA’s regional vice president for the Americas, says that the state of the global airline sector -- including carriers in the Caribbean -- is “as bad as one could expect,” and the industry will need government support to resume any form of service. In this week’s Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO) podcast,...