Air France secures wet-leased E190 capacity

Alitalia (AZ, Rome Fiumicino) moved the bulk of its operations from Milan Malpensa to Milan Linate as of August 1, following the limited reopening of the latter in mid-July, ch-aviation analysis has revealed.

The Italian flag carrier relocated its three territorial continuity routes to airports in Sardinia (Alghero, Cagliari, and Olbia) from Malpensa to Linate starting on July 24. The remainder of its domestic and European routes were moved a week later. Following the relocation, Alitalia connects Malpensa with just Rome Fiumicino (2x daily) and Cagliari (weekly), the ch-aviation schedules module shows.

Alitalia plans to restart long-haul operations from Malpensa in the coming weeks; first, to New York JFK on September 2, and then to Tokyo Narita on October 3. It does not have any imminent plans to add any new short-haul routes from the airport.

Located much closer to the centre of Milan, Linate was closed on March 16 when authorities decided to consolidate traffic serving the region of Lombardy at one airport. Linate...

Air France-KLM has pushed back its forecast for a full recovery to 2024 and will intensify its restructuring plans, including “significant” job losses, it said as it unveiled a EUR2.6 billion euro (USD3.1 billion) net second-quarter loss and EUR1.55 billion (USD1.82 billion) quarterly operating loss.

The group's half-year net loss stands at EUR4.4 billion (USD5.2 billion), its operating loss EUR2.4 billion (USD2.8 billion).

It expects group capacity in 2021 to be at least 20% below 2019 levels, it outlined in a statement accompanying the results, while predicting that capacity between July and September 2020 will be about 45% of 2019, rising to 65% in the fourth quarter.

“The group and its airlines must significantly reduce the number of employees,” it warned. “There is limited visibility on the demand recovery curve as customer booking behaviour is much more short term than before the covid-19 crisis.”

Air France-KLM has EUR14.2 billion (USD16.7 billion) of “liquidity or credit lines at its disposal to weather the crisis and restructure its business” following substantial support from the French and Dutch...