Airlines Cut Costs, Ask When Crisis Will End
Scandinavia's leading airline SAS scrambled for cash, Austrian Airlines profits slumped and Finnish pilots and chefs were told to stay at home as global carriers served up economic gruel round the clock on Friday.
In Asia, Hong Kong airline Cathay Pacific lamented a "collapse" in economy class yields as it cut fares to fill seats, while US giant American Airlines warned it would have to make deeper capacity cuts to make ends meet.
"We have a situation that has never existed like this before in aviation. I honestly cannot say how long the crisis will last," Joachim Hunold, head of Germany's second-biggest airline Air Berlin said at the ITB travel fair in Berlin.
Airline stocks joined a broader market rally, pulled higher by the shares of SAS on relief it would raise SEK6 billion Swedish kronor (USD$693.6 million) needed to ride out the economic storm.
But in a sign of the hard sell surrounding battered airline stocks, SAS was forced to offer shareholders a deep discount to prevent them turning their back on the deal.
The loss-making airline priced its issue at an 88 percent discount to the market price.
"All of a sudden you know that SAS will get its SEK6 billion and there was some doubt about this before," said Erik Gustafsson, an analyst at Carnegie investment bank.
Sweden, Norway and Denmark own 50 percent of SAS which was briefly in talks to be taken over by Lufthansa last year.
In Finland, national carrier Finnair said it would put some 700 of its 800 pilots on unpaid leave for at least one week starting from mid-April.
The move comes as it cuts routes to counter falling demand.
It also said it planned to temporarily lay off all 700 of its catering staff for anything between 2 weeks and 3 months.
"The economic situation and productivity of Finnair Catering have weakened significantly," said Kristina Inkilainen, head of Finnair Catering. "The number of passengers has fallen and the travel model has changed conclusively since the beginning of the year, which has reduced sales clearly."
"COLLAPSE" IN YIELDS
Many airlines have reported business customers trading down to economy class to save money, requiring fewer elaborate meals.
The chief executive of Air France-KLM said last week such downgrades were supporting yields, or average fares per passenger on board, in the economy cabin -- though not by enough to compensate for falling premium-class revenues.
Because business travelers tend to book late and want flexibility, they often have to pay the priciest economy fares.
Still, Asia's fifth largest airline, Cathay Pacific, said yields in the back of the plane had tumbled -- and, like others, suggested the whole industry was flying blind.
"The problem with this crisis is that we're, at best, in a U-shaped recession... We don't know how long it's going to last," chief executive Tony Tyler said.
He said there had been a "further deterioration" in yields in premium-class segments in the first quarter.
"What we've also seen in recent weeks is a collapse in the economy class yields," he said, adding this was mostly due to "very, very strong competition in what is a very soft market."
Cathay has no plan to tap share markets, he said, however.
Airlines worldwide lost up to USD$8 billion in 2008, the International Air Transport Association said last week.
Austrian Airlines became the latest to report a steep slump in full-year earnings on Friday as high fuel prices and a drop in travel demand eroded profits.
CSA Czech Airlines, a privatization candidate wooed by Air France-KLM and Aeroflot, said it faced a tough year but expected to stay afloat unless the market took another nosedive.
Airlines have been among the worst hit by the global credit crunch and economic downturn as companies and individuals cut back on vacations and business travel.
Dutch lessor AerCap said one of its ventures had axed an order for two Airbus jets due to the crisis.
To offset weaker travel demand in the recession, American Airlines parent AMR may need to make deeper capacity cuts, finance director Tom Horton said.
"As we get a little bit better fix on the summer of this year and see just how tough this economic situation is... we may well make a decision to go deeper," he said in an interview.
Still, the recession could open new markets for travelers.
At the Berlin travel fair, executives from airlines such as British Airways and Lufthansa said business travelers continued to switch to low-cost airlines -- giving low-cost long-haul flights a viable future for the first time.
