qf789 wrote:

CAN monthly data for February out

Total passengers dropped 83.57% while domestic fell 84.2%, international 81.29% and Hong Kong/Taiwan fell 90.5%

Aircraft movements fell 65.64%

https://twitter.com/FATIIIAviation/stat ... 29153?s=20

qf789 wrote:

mcogator wrote:

LH group cutting capacity 50%.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-heal ... SKBN20T25A

They are also considering grounding the whole A388 fleet as well

https://twitter.com/WandrMe/status/1235 ... 57506?s=20

seansasLCY wrote:

Lufthansa’s press release is here: https://newsroom.lufthansagroup.com/Eng ... f9cb53a1e2

While I don’t like to see such a reduction, it is good that Lufthansa is trying to stop any loses early on and be very flexible with the situation.

Revelation wrote:

ILNFlyer wrote:

Revelation wrote:

Just like post-9/11, the older big birds are the easiest to send off to pasture.

No mention of 747-8....interesting.

When looking at the various reviews of A380 vs 748i they all say the A380 wins when you can fill it. Well, that's the issue right now, they can't fill it. It has ~40% more seats to fill than 748i ( 509 vs 364 according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lufthansa#Current_fleet ) and empty seats deliver no revenue. Even 744 in its densest configuration is 30% less seats ( 509 vs 393 ). People seem to forget how big A380 really is, and how difficult it is to get 500+ people who all want to go from X to Y at the same time and are willing to pay enough to make the flight profitable. A380s lack of engine improvements really holds it back.

We know LH has invoked contractual rights to sell back six A380s to Airbus. This announcement does make one wonder if LH is thinking of ending the fleet sooner rather than later. 744 is vulnerable but they already plan to replace it with 777x coming as soon as Boeing can get through flight test. I'd say LH isn't ready to make up the capacity the A380s represent till 779 has fully ramped up, but it seems A380 is pretty vulnerable.

Ronaldo747 wrote:

I smell accelerated retirements of 747-400, A340-300 and -600 and also MD11s though.

musman9853 wrote:

mcogator wrote:

LH group cutting capacity 50%.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-heal ... SKBN20T25A

Absolutely insane. There's got to be something more than the virus causing this

knope2001 wrote:

Some additional anecdotal info from some seatmaps within a few hours of departure today (Thursday 3/5) for US carries TATL eastbound. Seatmaps can be iffy (sometimes worse than iffy), especially further out when some people have booked but not paid for a seat assignment. But a few hours before departure they are pretty indicative of load.

Italy is brutal
AA PHL-FCO AA 33 total on an A330
UA EWR-MXP 46 total, 4 up front, 10 in the middle and 32 in the back on a 764
DL JFK-FCO 53 total, 8 up front and 45 in back on an A330

Elsewhere, as Midwestindy and others have pointed out, first/business is taking a beating. Checking around 15 UA/AA/DL flights from the Northeast
. First/Business widely 40-60% empty to continental Europe, LHR closer to normal
. Coach varies -- some flights (LHR and continent) fewer than a dozen open seats, others maybe up to 20-35% empty but other than Italy coach doesn't look as bad.

Obviously this isn't the TATL peak season and it's not like any given flight on any day should be packed. But there's a huge difference between 15-20 open seats in back and 15-20 open up front.

I guess these make sense -- close-in business travel is slashed while many leisure travelers already booked hold their (metaphorical) breath and fly anyway. I wonder if when the virus (and virus fears) are on the wane the front cabin will recover first coach will lag for many months after.

musman9853 wrote:

mcogator wrote:

LH group cutting capacity 50%.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-heal ... SKBN20T25A

Absolutely insane. There's got to be something more than the virus causing this

LNCS0930 wrote:

You can see the relativity theory at work already with this. No talk from any US carriers about stopping flights to Germany or France with 600 cases yet when Iran and Italy had 600 about 10 days or two weeks ago people were losing their minds. The threshold will keep going up on reactions

knope2001 wrote:

knope2001 wrote:

Some additional anecdotal info from some seatmaps within a few hours of departure today (Thursday 3/5) for US carries TATL eastbound. Seatmaps can be iffy (sometimes worse than iffy), especially further out when some people have booked but not paid for a seat assignment. But a few hours before departure they are pretty indicative of load.

Italy is brutal
AA PHL-FCO AA 33 total on an A330
UA EWR-MXP 46 total, 4 up front, 10 in the middle and 32 in the back on a 764
DL JFK-FCO 53 total, 8 up front and 45 in back on an A330

Elsewhere, as Midwestindy and others have pointed out, first/business is taking a beating. Checking around 15 UA/AA/DL flights from the Northeast
. First/Business widely 40-60% empty to continental Europe, LHR closer to normal
. Coach varies -- some flights (LHR and continent) fewer than a dozen open seats, others maybe up to 20-35% empty but other than Italy coach doesn't look as bad.

Obviously this isn't the TATL peak season and it's not like any given flight on any day should be packed. But there's a huge difference between 15-20 open seats in back and 15-20 open up front.

I guess these make sense -- close-in business travel is slashed while many leisure travelers already booked hold their (metaphorical) breath and fly anyway. I wonder if when the virus (and virus fears) are on the wane the front cabin will recover first coach will lag for many months after.

Similar anecdotal seat map information for more than a dozen UA/DL/AA TPAC flights today, mostly from the west coast, using seat maps within roughly 2 hours of departure. None of these were China proper...mostly HND, NRT, ICN, KIX, TPE

Average empty seats / average total seats by class
--30 of 39 first/business empty
--22 of 30 premium mid-tier empty (for those aircraft with that sort of class)
--133 of 212 coach empty (regular + extra legroom)

As with yesterday's TATL numbers these are just a smattering of TPAC flights from a single day from seat maps. But (probably to nobody's surprise) Pacific seems notably worse than Atlantic (out side of Italy). And with so few people up front these have to economic killers. I have to imagine a ton of work is being done to figure out how to best react to this.

Clackers wrote:

What would happen if there was a worldwide lockdown of all flights? Who would go broke first? BA?

Arion640 wrote:

musman9853 wrote:

mcogator wrote:

LH group cutting capacity 50%.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-heal ... SKBN20T25A

Absolutely insane. There's got to be something more than the virus causing this

Doubt it. My company that employs 300k worldwide has banned the vast majority of international business travel. And we aren’t the only ones.

musman9853 wrote:

Arion640 wrote:

musman9853 wrote:

Absolutely insane. There's got to be something more than the virus causing this

Doubt it. My company that employs 300k worldwide has banned the vast majority of international business travel. And we aren’t the only ones.

Yeah I get it but a literal 50 percent drop? Most other airlines haven’t cut nearly as much. Maybe this is just the harbinger of what’s to come

PhilMcCrackin wrote:

qf789 wrote:

mcogator wrote:

LH group cutting capacity 50%.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-heal ... SKBN20T25A

They are also considering grounding the whole A388 fleet as well

https://twitter.com/WandrMe/status/1235 ... 57506?s=20

If this gets really bad, you're going to be seeing A380s grounded by the dozens.

RvA wrote:

IATA said it took airlines about 6-7 months to reach normal booking levels again after SARS. Given what’s happening now the troubles for airlines are likely to go well into 2021 already.
I definitely fear for the industry (travel/tourism). I don’t hear much about cruise companies but they must be in the toilet too I imagine.

smokeybandit wrote:

A sense a lot of these large event cancellations are due to corporate liability concerns, not so much for actually preventing the spread of COVID

ck8msp wrote:

smokeybandit wrote:

A sense a lot of these large event cancellations are due to corporate liability concerns, not so much for actually preventing the spread of COVID

For some reason my post about SXSW keeps getting deleted. I am trying to gauge how much an impact something likes this has on the schedules of the major carriers. Delta runs 8-9 flights between AUS-ATL on a daily basis. Mostly on A321's....Is a cancellation like this just a blip or more impactful? These types of cancellations seem to be magnifying and are certainly going to have an impact on domestic travel where previously we seemed to be more focused on International travel.

Revelation wrote:

PSAatSAN4Ever wrote:

Speculation on whether this is a temporary removal from service of A380's or a complete removal of the entire fleet from LH entirely is useless. Until Lufthansa makes the announcement as to which one it is, we can argue here at a.net until this thread has 5000 posts, but it won't tell us anything other than the fact that we're not in charge.

I'm not saying one side is right or wrong; I'm saying wait until the information is discussed by LH management.

I can say that whatever their decision is, the bean counters will calculate the LEAST efficient plane to remove (cost per pax per mile and so on), and leave the rest. Not every airport served by LH can utilize the A330 and fly to Germany - San Diego is the example where the four engine A340-300 is the perfect plane.

By your logic LH has just indicated what the least efficient plane is. The fact they are selling 6 back to Airbus shows they think they already have too many. AF has commented that they are a difficult plane to maintain. Getting rid of an entire fleet type saves a lot of money. It's pretty clear that CV has already impacted consumer decisions for the 2020 northern summer travel peak. As above I think LH will still need the remaining A380s till the 779s are here in force but if CV leads to a longer term economic recession I think A380 is the most vulnerable part of the LH fleet.

FCAFLYBOY wrote:

Clackers wrote:

What would happen if there was a worldwide lockdown of all flights? Who would go broke first? BA?

I very much doubt that. IAG is a very profitable business, and BA has the advantage of the lucrative LHR base. Whilst they might suffer, unless we’re all wiped out mostly, London will always have strong air demand, especially for business travel.

Think of many airlines in Asia and Africa .. CX won’t be allowed to fail, most likely. TG are suffering, Air Asia too. In Europe, Norwegian, but AF/KL May suffer heavily too in my opinion and LH too.

PSAatSAN4Ever wrote:

Revelation wrote:

PSAatSAN4Ever wrote:

Speculation on whether this is a temporary removal from service of A380's or a complete removal of the entire fleet from LH entirely is useless. Until Lufthansa makes the announcement as to which one it is, we can argue here at a.net until this thread has 5000 posts, but it won't tell us anything other than the fact that we're not in charge.

I'm not saying one side is right or wrong; I'm saying wait until the information is discussed by LH management.

I can say that whatever their decision is, the bean counters will calculate the LEAST efficient plane to remove (cost per pax per mile and so on), and leave the rest. Not every airport served by LH can utilize the A330 and fly to Germany - San Diego is the example where the four engine A340-300 is the perfect plane.

By your logic LH has just indicated what the least efficient plane is. The fact they are selling 6 back to Airbus shows they think they already have too many. AF has commented that they are a difficult plane to maintain. Getting rid of an entire fleet type saves a lot of money. It's pretty clear that CV has already impacted consumer decisions for the 2020 northern summer travel peak. As above I think LH will still need the remaining A380s till the 779s are here in force but if CV leads to a longer term economic recession I think A380 is the most vulnerable part of the LH fleet.

Agreed 100%. The evidence is very clear to those of us who are in the courtroom gallery, but until the jury returns with an official verdict, we'll have to wait. The preponderence of evidence is extraordinary in this case, as you pointed out. Wouldn't it be ironic if LH's 747-8's outlived the A380?

AA747123 wrote:

I am beginning to think the effects of this will be much worse than 9/11. Anyone who thinks airlines will get through this without massive layoffs and financial losses is in a dream land. I would expect bankruptcies for some of the US majors.

AA747123 wrote:

I am beginning to think the effects of this will be much worse than 9/11. Anyone who thinks airlines will get through this without massive layoffs and financial losses is in a dream land. I would expect bankruptcies for some of the US majors.

AA747123 wrote:

I am beginning to think the effects of this will be much worse than 9/11. Anyone who thinks airlines will get through this without massive layoffs and financial losses is in a dream land. I would expect bankruptcies for some of the US majors.

Airlines in the heavily hit area's should start considering offering their assets to combat this crisis.

-Aircraft assets:
Aircraft are perfect as isolation facilities, clinical environment control can be achieved. It will be safer for medical professionals too and will reduce secondary infections.
Aircraft cabins typical suck air back out at floor level on the sidewalls, so this strongly reduces the amount of infectious air cycling around the mouth and nose level.
Remove seats and start installing walls to build compartments. It' s faster than building pseudo-hospitals wherein construction workers are exposed to possible infections and the roofs are leaking, no compartments are present.
Remaining aircraft used as charters, flying ambulances to move patients around to provincial facilities with capacity.
Hundreds, thousands of aircraft grounded = a lot of capacity.

-People assets:
Train voluntary cabin and flight crew to perform basic care duties in support of shorthanded nurses and doctors.

-Catering facilities: obviously, provide meals to the aircraft used as isolation facilities.

-Infrastructures:
Maintenance buildings: Use as area's for disinfection of crews returning from aircraft, general laundry and logistics, support base for the crews working the aircraft. They are huge, so they are convenient and allow to reduce close contact.
HQ's operate as the brains of the whole operation. Organise charter flights to move patients around to facilities where capacity is available.


What's in it for the airlines? Quicker crisis resolution and they can get paid big money by the governments plus marketing impact.

AA747123 wrote:

I am beginning to think the effects of this will be much worse than 9/11. Anyone who thinks airlines will get through this without massive layoffs and financial losses is in a dream land. I would expect bankruptcies for some of the US majors.

aden23 wrote:

Can anyone comment on why airlines aren't discounting tickets, even though demand is extraordinarily low?

For example, Newark to Milan on United is going for $5000+ business class right now, but today's flight only had 30 pax.

What's the advantage to keeping prices so high when demand is at a record low?

joeblow10 wrote:

aden23 wrote:

Can anyone comment on why airlines aren't discounting tickets, even though demand is extraordinarily low?

For example, Newark to Milan on United is going for $5000+ business class right now, but today's flight only had 30 pax.

What's the advantage to keeping prices so high when demand is at a record low?

RM in play. Do you discount it so much as to sell higher volume, or keep the prices up and rely on fewer, high paying customers to buy?

RM theory is heavily influenced by expected value. If you have a 90% chance of selling a seat for $500 or a 10% chance of selling a seat for $5000, the latter mathematically results in a higher expected result.

Waterbomber2 wrote:

PSAatSAN4Ever wrote:

Revelation wrote:

By your logic LH has just indicated what the least efficient plane is. The fact they are selling 6 back to Airbus shows they think they already have too many. AF has commented that they are a difficult plane to maintain. Getting rid of an entire fleet type saves a lot of money. It's pretty clear that CV has already impacted consumer decisions for the 2020 northern summer travel peak. As above I think LH will still need the remaining A380s till the 779s are here in force but if CV leads to a longer term economic recession I think A380 is the most vulnerable part of the LH fleet.

Agreed 100%. The evidence is very clear to those of us who are in the courtroom gallery, but until the jury returns with an official verdict, we'll have to wait. The preponderence of evidence is extraordinary in this case, as you pointed out. Wouldn't it be ironic if LH's 747-8's outlived the A380?

I don't agree.
Airlines are trying to reduce capacity and it's obvious that the bigger planes will be the first to be grounded.

Even if an imaginary CASM-killer version of an A380 burned only 1% more fuel than a B787, it would make more sense to operate the B787 to carry those remaining 150 pax.
Very soon, those 150 pax will become 100 pax, at which point it makes more sense to ground the B787 rather than fly it at a loss.

It's not about efficiency or CASM, it's about conserving cash to survive.

Norwegian is already grounding B787's too.

By the way, the capital ans maintenance cost of grounding an A380 will be about the same as for grounding a B77W and only 20% more than a B787.
So the burden of major groundings will be as big on an airline with 50 A380's as it will be for an airline with 60 B787's.

By the way, at this point, it's most likely that a majority of long haul flights are already operating at a loss. A380 operators will pull the plug sooner and start conserving cash, making deals with lessors to suspend lease payments for stored aircraft, while small widebody operators will try to peddle on and end up burning through precious cash and face lessors at a later stage when they will already have given out all the leeway they have.

Dieuwer wrote:

joeblow10 wrote:

aden23 wrote:

Can anyone comment on why airlines aren't discounting tickets, even though demand is extraordinarily low?

For example, Newark to Milan on United is going for $5000+ business class right now, but today's flight only had 30 pax.

What's the advantage to keeping prices so high when demand is at a record low?

RM in play. Do you discount it so much as to sell higher volume, or keep the prices up and rely on fewer, high paying customers to buy?

RM theory is heavily influenced by expected value. If you have a 90% chance of selling a seat for $500 or a 10% chance of selling a seat for $5000, the latter mathematically results in a higher expected result.

Easy to make that case with hand-picked numbers.
It will be completely different with 90% change at $500 and 5% chance at $5000.

joeblow10 wrote:

aden23 wrote:

Can anyone comment on why airlines aren't discounting tickets, even though demand is extraordinarily low?

For example, Newark to Milan on United is going for $5000+ business class right now, but today's flight only had 30 pax.

What's the advantage to keeping prices so high when demand is at a record low?

RM in play. Do you discount it so much as to sell higher volume, or keep the prices up and rely on fewer, high paying customers to buy?

RM theory is heavily influenced by expected value. If you have a 90% chance of selling a seat for $500 or a 10% chance of selling a seat for $5000, the latter mathematically results in a higher expected result.

joeblow10 wrote:

Dieuwer wrote:

joeblow10 wrote:

RM in play. Do you discount it so much as to sell higher volume, or keep the prices up and rely on fewer, high paying customers to buy?

RM theory is heavily influenced by expected value. If you have a 90% chance of selling a seat for $500 or a 10% chance of selling a seat for $5000, the latter mathematically results in a higher expected result.

Easy to make that case with hand-picked numbers.
It will be completely different with 90% change at $500 and 5% chance at $5000.

Sorry for trying to provide a simple example with “hand picked numbers” but this is the basis for much of how RM software functions.

Obviously the user can override or influence demand to an extent, but certain pricing restrictions (advance purchase requirements) also limit the ability to simply control price thru inventory.