Corona Virus outbreak - Aviation related News and Discussion Thread

lightsaber · Sat Feb 15, 2020 11:20 am

qf789 wrote:
China Southern has parked all 5 A380's, several other aircraft are seen parked at CAN as well

https://twitter.com/FATIIIAviation/stat ... 50758?s=20

That photo is an eerie in how still the airport is.
7 cars moving. Parking lots mostly empty.

As someone on the "vendor side" of aviation, this is a definitive black swan situation. It will, in my opinion, take over a year for growth to require more aircraft.
In my opinion, widebody production could stop for a year due to the economic damage already done by the Coronavirus (Covid-19). I believe narrowbody production is only in balance because of the MAX issue.

Seeing 5 A380s parked from an airline that really shouldn't have them isn't a big deal. I'm curious how many EK is parking because of this (above normal maintenance).

Lightsaber

CriticalPoint · Sat Feb 15, 2020 11:34 am

peterinlisbon wrote:
qf789 wrote:
As of 12 Feb 20 there were 1215 aircraft grounded in China by Chinese Airlines

https://twitter.com/chaviation/status/1 ... 35360?s=20

I wonder if some of these aircraft could be leased to American and other airlines that are affected by the problems with the MAX. It seems crazy that flights are being cancelled in one part of the world due to a lack of aircraft, whilst thousands of aircraft are sitting idle in Asia.

It would take months to get 1 frame for each airline operationally ready To fly.

Also US carriers have SCOPE protections in their pilot contracts to protect their jobs so wet leases are allowed. AKA the Chinese can’t fly their aircraft for us.

qf789 · Sat Feb 15, 2020 12:45 pm

lightsaber wrote:
qf789 wrote:
China Southern has parked all 5 A380's, several other aircraft are seen parked at CAN as well

https://twitter.com/FATIIIAviation/stat ... 50758?s=20

That photo is an eerie in how still the airport is.
7 cars moving. Parking lots mostly empty.

As someone on the "vendor side" of aviation, this is a definitive black swan situation. It will, in my opinion, take over a year for growth to require more aircraft.
In my opinion, widebody production could stop for a year due to the economic damage already done by the Coronavirus (Covid-19). I believe narrowbody production is only in balance because of the MAX issue.

Seeing 5 A380s parked from an airline that really shouldn't have them isn't a big deal. I'm curious how many EK is parking because of this (above normal maintenance).

Lightsaber

Emirates has 11 A380's out of service, all at DWC

https://twitter.com/a380fanclub/status/ ... 38080?s=20

Thunderbolt500 · Sat Feb 15, 2020 1:37 pm

peterinlisbon wrote:
qf789 wrote:
As of 12 Feb 20 there were 1215 aircraft grounded in China by Chinese Airlines

https://twitter.com/chaviation/status/1 ... 35360?s=20

I wonder if some of these aircraft could be leased to American and other airlines that are affected by the problems with the MAX. It seems crazy that flights are being cancelled in one part of the world due to a lack of aircraft, whilst thousands of aircraft are sitting idle in Asia.

No way how do you know if the virus in the plane.

patrickw421 · Sat Feb 15, 2020 1:51 pm

Thunderbolt500 wrote:
peterinlisbon wrote:
qf789 wrote:
As of 12 Feb 20 there were 1215 aircraft grounded in China by Chinese Airlines

https://twitter.com/chaviation/status/1 ... 35360?s=20

I wonder if some of these aircraft could be leased to American and other airlines that are affected by the problems with the MAX. It seems crazy that flights are being cancelled in one part of the world due to a lack of aircraft, whilst thousands of aircraft are sitting idle in Asia.

No way how do you know if the virus in the plane.

Except a virus can only survive outside a human/animal body for a number of hours, or at optimal conditions, days so it would be the least concern for this to happen.

Out of curiosity, how about a dry lease if as pointed out above that the scope conditions with union prevent flights performed by other pilots?

Though my guess is that Asian carriers will also have difficulty to determine how long they can lease out the aircrafts

Antaras · Sat Feb 15, 2020 2:17 pm

patrickw421 wrote:
Though my guess is that Asian carriers will also have difficulty to determine how long they can lease out the aircrafts

Vietnam Airlines plans to lease out some of their aircraft (A321ceos, A359s, 789s and 78Xs) with some 6-month contracts.
Ideal?

ZazuPIT · Sat Feb 15, 2020 3:26 pm

I thought I read somewhere in the same article about CZ grounding it's 380's that CA has grounded it's 748's. Anyone know if that's the case?

Antaras · Sat Feb 15, 2020 4:13 pm

ZazuPIT wrote:
I thought I read somewhere in the same article about CZ grounding it's 380's that CA has grounded it's 748's. Anyone know if that's the case?

Yup, at this moment using the filter "B748" on fr24 there is no CA-code is flying

peterinlisbon · Sat Feb 15, 2020 5:08 pm

CriticalPoint wrote:
peterinlisbon wrote:
qf789 wrote:
As of 12 Feb 20 there were 1215 aircraft grounded in China by Chinese Airlines

https://twitter.com/chaviation/status/1 ... 35360?s=20

I wonder if some of these aircraft could be leased to American and other airlines that are affected by the problems with the MAX. It seems crazy that flights are being cancelled in one part of the world due to a lack of aircraft, whilst thousands of aircraft are sitting idle in Asia.

It would take months to get 1 frame for each airline operationally ready To fly.

Also US carriers have SCOPE protections in their pilot contracts to protect their jobs so wet leases are allowed. AKA the Chinese can’t fly their aircraft for us.

Why would it take months to get the planes ready? These planes were flying until recently, there is nothing wrong with them. Couldn't they just put stickers over the livery and change the headrest covers? To save having to redo the interiors, they could just choose airlines with configurations that are more or less similar. There is plenty to choose from.

CriticalPoint · Sat Feb 15, 2020 5:29 pm

peterinlisbon wrote:
CriticalPoint wrote:
peterinlisbon wrote:

I wonder if some of these aircraft could be leased to American and other airlines that are affected by the problems with the MAX. It seems crazy that flights are being cancelled in one part of the world due to a lack of aircraft, whilst thousands of aircraft are sitting idle in Asia.

It would take months to get 1 frame for each airline operationally ready To fly.

Also US carriers have SCOPE protections in their pilot contracts to protect their jobs so wet leases are allowed. AKA the Chinese can’t fly their aircraft for us.

Why would it take months to get the planes ready? These planes were flying until recently, there is nothing wrong with them. Couldn't they just put stickers over the livery and change the headrest covers? To save having to redo the interiors, they could just choose airlines with configurations that are more or less similar. There is plenty to choose from.

Because China is notorious for reverse engineering parts. This is why it takes so long for United to induct the planes from China Southern. The FAA will want all maintenance records and will want to go through the entire aircraft before they allow a US airline to fly it. They will also require an updated operating certificate and registration and any and all difference will require training for the pilots.

lightsaber · Sat Feb 15, 2020 6:16 pm

Antaras wrote:
ZazuPIT wrote:
I thought I read somewhere in the same article about CZ grounding it's 380's that CA has grounded it's 748's. Anyone know if that's the case?

Yup, at this moment using the filter "B748" on fr24 there is no CA-code is flying

Wow Just wow.

I bet this was posted before, at least 85,000 flights didn't happen in 3 weeks.

https://amp.theguardian.com/business/20 ... al-economy

Aircraft demand and parts demand just took a hockey stick turn down.

Lightsaber

AYVN · Sat Feb 15, 2020 6:24 pm

Antaras wrote:
patrickw421 wrote:
Though my guess is that Asian carriers will also have difficulty to determine how long they can lease out the aircrafts

Vietnam Airlines plans to lease out some of their aircraft (A321ceos, A359s, 789s and 78Xs) with some 6-month contracts.
Ideal?

I think 321 might find home, but so many 350 and 787 operators are parking part of their widebody fleet already, so where would the demand be?

konrad · Sat Feb 15, 2020 7:13 pm

AYVN wrote:
I think 321 might find home, but so many 350 and 787 operators are parking part of their widebody fleet already, so where would the demand be?

789's and 78X's might be picked by airlines suffering from groundings due to RR issues.

oldJoe · Sat Feb 15, 2020 9:05 pm

konrad wrote:
AYVN wrote:
I think 321 might find home, but so many 350 and 787 operators are parking part of their widebody fleet already, so where would the demand be?

789's and 78X's might be picked by airlines suffering from groundings due to RR issues.

..... and fly them to ???

Antaras · Sun Feb 16, 2020 12:55 am

AYVN wrote:
Antaras wrote:
patrickw421 wrote:
Though my guess is that Asian carriers will also have difficulty to determine how long they can lease out the aircrafts

Vietnam Airlines plans to lease out some of their aircraft (A321ceos, A359s, 789s and 78Xs) with some 6-month contracts.
Ideal?

I think 321 might find home, but so many 350 and 787 operators are parking part of their widebody fleet already, so where would the demand be?

SAA says "hi"

RJMAZ · Sun Feb 16, 2020 6:11 am

I think we might have to consider the worse case scenario is playing out here. What do we do if a dozen countries are in lock down for over 6 months?

I can see western countries forcing all inbound flights to land at military bases for quarantine checks. Tourist visas might become very hard to obtain if you are from a country with a high number of infections. I could see fear reducing global air travel to fraction of 2019 levels.

This should mean huge retirements of older aircraft and the A380 fleet. Multiple airlines will surely go bankrupt.

The pressure to get the 737MAX back in the air will be greatly reduced when half of the global fleet is parked. At this rate in a couple months this will probably kill any chance of the NMA and the 777X will be on shakey ground.

Anyone want to go halves in a cruise ship? I hear they are going cheap.

Guillaume787 · Sun Feb 16, 2020 7:29 am

I don’t know if this has been posted but Cathay Pacific has temporarily closed 3 lounges at HKG following their 30% reduction in capacity:

https://news.cathaypacific.com/cathay-p ... rt-lounges

theaviator380 · Mon Feb 17, 2020 4:02 pm

What are loads like on UK/EU traffic to US and other Asian countries (except China/HK)?

Trying to get an idea whether people are cancelling their travel plans or business and leisure as usual ?

Thanks in advance.

PixelPilot · Mon Feb 17, 2020 4:26 pm

oldJoe wrote:
konrad wrote:
AYVN wrote:
I think 321 might find home, but so many 350 and 787 operators are parking part of their widebody fleet already, so where would the demand be?

789's and 78X's might be picked by airlines suffering from groundings due to RR issues.

..... and fly them to ???

Not every 787 flies to China.

VRHNM · Mon Feb 17, 2020 4:47 pm

Rumour that the midfield concourse will be closed at HKG. The concourse has about 19 gates (not counting remote ones) and is the concourse that Hong Kong Airlines uses (along with HK Express and a number of other carriers).

Aptivaboy · Mon Feb 17, 2020 4:48 pm

Sorry if this has already been posted; I looked and didn't see it. Apologies if I missed it. Fox News is reporting that a couple with the virus flew on Delta and Hawaiian to and within Hawaii, specifically HNL and OGG.

https://www.foxnews.com/travel/couple-c ... n-airlines

No idea if they were already infected at the time the flew on these planes and visited The Islands. I wonder if this will change how Hawaiian airports are doing business? As of last week, Hawaiian travel blogs and sites were reporting no special screening for visitors from Asia, whereas at least LAX was doing random screenings. Any ideas or thoughts?

Thanks,

Bob

Clackers · Mon Feb 17, 2020 4:54 pm

All aircraft worldwide need to be grounded. it is the only way we contain and BEAT the virus.

However, greed will mean that the virus spreads.

32andBelow · Mon Feb 17, 2020 5:20 pm

[*]

Clackers wrote:
All aircraft worldwide need to be grounded. it is the only way we contain and BEAT the virus.

However, greed will mean that the virus spreads.

Holy shit are you nuts? Way more people will die from other illnesses and cancer if you did this.

WIederling · Mon Feb 17, 2020 5:37 pm

lightsaber wrote:
As someone on the "vendor side" of aviation, this is a definitive black swan situation. It will, in my opinion, take over a year for growth to require more aircraft.

What do you propose?
Fly anyway?
Spread the virus even faster for a "better epidemic" ?
I suppose some crafty person or other could get rich with selling protection.

Some redneck emulations could run around and shoot people with the wrong looks.
This again would boost undertaker business.

In a capitalist world you have to make the best of every opportunity.

zeke · Mon Feb 17, 2020 5:46 pm

VRHNM wrote:
Rumour that the midfield concourse will be closed at HKG. The concourse has about 19 gates (not counting remote ones) and is the concourse that Hong Kong Airlines uses (along with HK Express and a number of other carriers).

It would make a lot of sense.

zakuivcustom · Mon Feb 17, 2020 6:28 pm

Aptivaboy wrote:
Sorry if this has already been posted; I looked and didn't see it. Apologies if I missed it. Fox News is reporting that a couple with the virus flew on Delta and Hawaiian to and within Hawaii, specifically HNL and OGG.

https://www.foxnews.com/travel/couple-c ... n-airlines

No idea if they were already infected at the time the flew on these planes and visited The Islands. I wonder if this will change how Hawaiian airports are doing business? As of last week, Hawaiian travel blogs and sites were reporting no special screening for visitors from Asia, whereas at least LAX was doing random screenings. Any ideas or thoughts?

Thanks,

Bob

Your regular temperature screening is not going to do much with the long incubation period of nCoV.

The Japanese couple is another one of those cases where they have never even been to China. In another word, unless US decide to imposed entry restriction on people that had been to Japan also (which would happen if the community outbreak there get crazier...), that Japanese couple is just another two Japanese tourists that Hawaii see thousands of every single day.

Clackers wrote:
All aircraft worldwide need to be grounded. it is the only way we contain and BEAT the virus.

However, greed will mean that the virus spreads.

Hysteria much? Quite frankly you are 100x more likely to catch a common flu on, let say, a domestic US flight than nCoV.

VRHNM wrote:
Rumour that the midfield concourse will be closed at HKG. The concourse has about 19 gates (not counting remote ones) and is the concourse that Hong Kong Airlines uses (along with HK Express and a number of other carriers).

Haven't see anything on local HK news yet. But it would not surprise me, either.

P.S. It seems like LH and TK (among a few other carriers) also use the MFC normally. But yes, HX and UO are the main users of the MFC.

dtw2hyd · Mon Feb 17, 2020 7:09 pm

Aptivaboy wrote:
No idea if they were already infected at the time the flew on these planes and visited The Islands. I wonder if this will change how Hawaiian airports are doing business? As of last week, Hawaiian travel blogs and sites were reporting no special screening for visitors from Asia, whereas at least LAX was doing random screenings. Any ideas or thoughts?

Thanks,

Bob

Don't know how effective, but some of the Asian airports have FLIR Camera pointed towards arrivals and anyone over-temperature threshold gets a secondary check and quarantine. This practice started during SARS.

If COVID19 has an incubation period of 24(rumored) days and some victims were asymptomatic, not sure how any process could be fail-safe.

Aptivaboy · Mon Feb 17, 2020 7:19 pm

Gotcha, thanks zakuivcustom and dtw2hyd. I had forgotten about how long the incubation period appears to be. That makes any screenings difficult in terms of effectiveness. My Mom is flying on HA in April and is paranoid about being on the same plane! I told her not to worry, 717 versus A330, not the same plane but you all know how paranoia gets going.

acomp · Mon Feb 17, 2020 11:30 pm

zeke wrote:
VRHNM wrote:
Rumour that the midfield concourse will be closed at HKG. The concourse has about 19 gates (not counting remote ones) and is the concourse that Hong Kong Airlines uses (along with HK Express and a number of other carriers).

It would make a lot of sense.

How about the north satellite concourse (It has only 9 gates for narrow body)?
Passengers still need to take shuttle bus to access the concourse.

ZazuPIT · Mon Feb 17, 2020 11:54 pm

OAG newsletter shows the massive cuts over the last five weeks:

https://www.oag.com/blog/coronavirus-st ... i=83441791

Thunderbolt500 · Tue Feb 18, 2020 12:17 am

RJMAZ wrote:
I think we might have to consider the worse case scenario is playing out here. What do we do if a dozen countries are in lock down for over 6 months?

I can see western countries forcing all inbound flights to land at military bases for quarantine checks. Tourist visas might become very hard to obtain if you are from a country with a high number of infections. I could see fear reducing global air travel to fraction of 2019 levels.

This should mean huge retirements of older aircraft and the A380 fleet. Multiple airlines will surely go bankrupt.

The pressure to get the 737MAX back in the air will be greatly reduced when half of the global fleet is parked. At this rate in a couple months this will probably kill any chance of the NMA and the 777X will be on shakey ground.

Anyone want to go halves in a cruise ship? I hear they are going cheap.

I wouldn't go on cruise for any money these ship are contaminated I don't know how. You can clean them safely

zeke · Tue Feb 18, 2020 1:00 am

acomp wrote:

How about the north satellite concourse (It has only 9 gates for narrow body)?
Passengers still need to take shuttle bus to access the concourse.

That was closed I think a week or two ago, it was good timing for that as they are connecting the new bridge from the main terminal to that terminal. Its a bit like the Gatwick bridge is you are familiar with that.

hongkongflyer · Tue Feb 18, 2020 2:36 am

VRHNM wrote:
Rumour that the midfield concourse will be closed at HKG. The concourse has about 19 gates (not counting remote ones) and is the concourse that Hong Kong Airlines uses (along with HK Express and a number of other carriers).

10 gates in the midfield concourse will not be used since 18/2.
Hong Kong Airlines' lounge in the concourse will be temporary closed,
the on in the main building will remain open.

AngelsDecay · Tue Feb 18, 2020 2:38 am

Welll...it seems that we have a field in aviation starting to trigger and making some profit with this sad Virus crisis....very interesting article form BBC regarding our aviation»»»)

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-51527042

Antaras · Tue Feb 18, 2020 2:51 am

This moment, over the China [mailand and territories] airspace.

Just WOW, WOW, WOW and WOW
(just compare the traffic over Japan and you will understand that big drop in air traffic. The Japan airspace's traffic is what China airspace's traffic looked like before the epidemic)

blandy62 · Tue Feb 18, 2020 3:34 am

acomp wrote:

How about the north satellite concourse (It has only 9 gates for narrow body)?
Passengers still need to take shuttle bus to access the concourse.

If I recall well, they closed it few days ago

janders · Tue Feb 18, 2020 4:04 am

SIA announced network reductions through May.

Full list of routes/frequency reductions: https://www.singaporeair.com/saar5/pdf/ ... pacity.pdf

Primarily Asia region, but some Europe, Australia/NZ and USA cancellations

janders · Tue Feb 18, 2020 4:14 am

Reductions in international flights for various countries.

Bloomberg article
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... portugal-s

dampfnudel · Tue Feb 18, 2020 5:13 am

janders wrote:
SIA announced network reductions through May.

Full list of routes/frequency reductions: https://www.singaporeair.com/saar5/pdf/ ... pacity.pdf

Primarily Asia region, but some Europe, Australia/NZ and USA cancellations

I wonder if this is foreshadowing of other carriers extending their suspensions/reductions into May as well?

N212R · Tue Feb 18, 2020 7:48 am

No one wants to talk about the two 747's used to bring back US citizens from the ill-fated cruise ship in Japan?

acomp · Tue Feb 18, 2020 9:59 am

Hong Kong Airlines just announced a temporary change to inflight service.
No more duvets/blankets and magazines from today.
Meal service will be limited to a bottle of water for biz class passengers and a cuplet of water for economic class passengers from 2/19.
It sounds more like a budget cut...

OneWorldFan · Tue Feb 18, 2020 10:06 am

Hey guys, on Friday the 14th I flew into PVG and it was an eerie sight to say the least. However one thing that especially stuck out was this Ryanair 737. Any idea what it would be doing in Shanghai?

scbriml · Tue Feb 18, 2020 10:18 am

N212R wrote:
No one wants to talk about the two 747's used to bring back US citizens from the ill-fated cruise ship in Japan?

Sure. What do you want to say about them?

Clackers · Tue Feb 18, 2020 10:21 am

janders wrote:
SIA announced network reductions through May.

Full list of routes/frequency reductions: https://www.singaporeair.com/saar5/pdf/ ... pacity.pdf

Primarily Asia region, but some Europe, Australia/NZ and USA cancellations

Wow, SQ are cutting a London flight 5x weekly. Never saw that one coming.

kyrone · Tue Feb 18, 2020 11:50 am

According to this, the virus is now considering roughly 20 deadlier than the seasonal flu:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytime ... 0p19G=7900

The impact on aviation will be significant all around if that holds true.

zakuivcustom · Tue Feb 18, 2020 1:04 pm

janders wrote:
Reductions in international flights for various countries.

Bloomberg article
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... portugal-s

Just FYI this is reduction of capacity to/from mainland PRC, not overall international capacity of the listed country (or region...if you want to be politically correct).

Overall reduction at HKG, for example, is closer to 30-40% (Still a lot, but not as crazy as 80+%)

acomp wrote:
Hong Kong Airlines just announced a temporary change to inflight service.
No more duvets/blankets and magazines from today.
Meal service will be limited to a bottle of water for biz class passengers and a cuplet of water for economic class passengers from 2/19.
It sounds more like a budget cut...

And thus, HX is officially worse than a LCC :white:

I agree with you - this is just an excuse to further cut cost.

janders wrote:
SIA announced network reductions through May.

Full list of routes/frequency reductions: https://www.singaporeair.com/saar5/pdf/ ... pacity.pdf

Primarily Asia region, but some Europe, Australia/NZ and USA cancellations

And this could get trim further if things continue to spiral downward in Singapore.

tphuang · Tue Feb 18, 2020 1:25 pm

This won't be limited to just SQ. All these premium Asian airlines like JL, NH and KE are gong to cut capacity to Europe and North America also. People simply don't want to take vacation or travel to business to Asia right now.

lalib · Tue Feb 18, 2020 2:07 pm

From an enthusiastic's point of view I'd love to see photos of the airlines parked nicely at major airports.

GCT64 · Tue Feb 18, 2020 2:27 pm

OneWorldFan wrote:
Hey guys, on Friday the 14th I flew into PVG and it was an eerie sight to say the least. However one thing that especially stuck out was this Ryanair 737. Any idea what it would be doing in Shanghai?

I can't see the image, but I guess it was one of N547CC (ex EI-DAD) or N556CC (ex EI-DAE) both reported to be at PVG for conversion into freighters.

MohawkWeekend · Tue Feb 18, 2020 5:20 pm

I might have missed it but have any US carriers formally stated that over all bookings are holding steady or declining? Not just to Asia but system wide.

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