Airlines Continue To Slash Flights As Bookings Plunge

The BBC reports:

Thousands of flights have been cancelled worldwide as airlines struggle to cope with a slump in demand caused by the coronavirus outbreak. Ryanair will stop services to and from Italy from Friday until 8 April, with BA scrapping its routes until 4 April as the country goes into lockdown.

EasyJet has cancelled all of its flights to and from Italy between 10 March and 3 April. It has said it will operate “rescue flights” in the coming days.

Norwegian Air has also said it will cut about 3,000 flights in the next three months, about 15% of its capacity. It also plans to temporarily lay off “a significant share” of its workforce.

CNN reports:



American, the world’s largest airline, said it would cut its international capacity by 10% this summer compared to the current schedule, and eliminate 7.5% of its domestic flights in April. Delta Air Lines said it will slash its international flights between 20% to 25% and trim domestic flights by 10% to 15%. ”

We are prepared to do more as the situation evolves,” said Delta CEO Ed Bastian. “Should the environment get worse, we can go deeper.”

United, the first airline to cut its domestic schedule last week, said that new bookings to Asia and Europe have essentially been wiped out by canceled reservations to those destinations. It has suffered a 70% drop in net bookings on domestic flights when taking canceled reservations into account.