L-Shaped Recovery for Air Lines. Staking their future on a vaccine.
By Wolf Richter for WOLF STREET.
American Airlines on Friday, and Delta Air Lines on Thursday, warned about once-again slowing bookings. The highly profitable business air travel segment remains essentially in zombie-status, but leisure travel perked up a little in recent months, and over Thanksgiving inched up further by a microscopic amount. But total travel remains woefully down from last year even during the best day, and is now heading lower again.
The number of passengers going through TSA checkpoints to enter the secured areas at US airports during the post-Thanksgiving week through Saturday, December 5, compared to the same weekday in the same week last year, showed the deterioration: between -64.2% and -69.2%. And what the airlines warned about is a decline of bookings from these already low levels.
The chart shows the total number of TSA checkpoint screenings in 2020 (red) and 2019 (green) for each day and the seven-day moving average (bold lines). The four spikes of over 1 million daily screenings over the Thanksgiving travel period (Friday Nov 20; Sunday Nov 22; Wednesday Nov 25; and Sunday Nov 29) were a pale imitation of last year’s spikes during that time, but on the best of these days, Nov 22, the year-over-year decline narrowed to -54.9%, which was the least worst collapse since the collapse of the airline business started in March:
So now, it’s once again airline confession time.
On Friday, American Airlines [AAL] released a statement, saying that “like others in the industry,” it “has seen a slowing in demand and forward bookings due to the recent acceleration of the pandemic.”
And it added that “rising COVID-19 case counts and associated travel restrictions in the immediate period leading up to the Thanksgiving holiday have resulted in a slowing of net bookings growth, which has persisted into December.”
And fourth quarter “daily cash burn,” the industry metric that was born out of the Pandemic, would come in at the high end of its previously estimated range of $25-$30 million per day “due to the slowing of demand and forward bookings referenced above and modestly higher fuel prices.”
A “daily cash burn” of $30 million translates into a cash burn of $2.8 billion per quarter. American Airlines “continues to expect the recovery in demand to be volatile and difficult to accurately forecast,” it said.
On Thursday, Delta Air Lines [DAL] had kicked off confession time. In the middle of a bunch of blah-blah-blah about employee testing and voluntary contract tracing for inbound international travelers, it said, “While we enjoyed an increase in travel volumes over the Thanksgiving holiday, in reality they were still less than half of what we normally fly during the holiday.”
“Less than half” on the best day during the Thanksgiving period was what the industry overall experienced. TSA checkpoint screenings during the Thanksgiving travel period ranged from -54.9% on the least bad day compared to the same day the prior year, to -64.7% on the worst day. Checkpoint screenings have further weakened since then. And the seven-day moving average, at -65.0%, is back where it had first been on September 4 – three months ago:
Delta said that “like others in the industry, we’ve seen some slowing of demand and forward bookings as COVID cases have risen across the U.S.”
And it expects its Q4 revenues to collapse by about 70% from last year. And it expects “daily cash burn” to be about $2 million per day higher than its previous estimate, now between $12 million and 14 million per day in Q4.
US airlines have cut capacity to meet the collapse in demand, sidelining or retiring hundreds of planes. And they have laid off tens of thousands of people. This started early in the Pandemic and has allowed airlines to reduce daily cash burn. Despite these cuts, they need a significant increase in demand to reach breakeven.
Like the entire industry, Delta is eagerly waiting for the vaccines. Its hope of reaching the breakeven point in the spring “has been bolstered by continued positive developments with vaccines,” it said.
“While it will take months for a vaccine to be broadly distributed, it’s a clear sign of light at the end of the tunnel,” Delta said. “Widespread vaccinations among our customers and our employees will be essential to Delta’s sustained recovery and the start of our rebound.”
So there better not be any kind of hiccup with these vaccines. Everything now depends on them.
And the V-shaped recovery is starting to look suspiciously like an L. See the chart above. While the vaccines, if and when they become broadly available, will eventually allow leisure travel to recover at least partially, the big profitable segment of expense-account business travel isn’t going back to the old normal.
Businesses have figured out – have in fact been forced to figure out – how to conduct many of these types of meetings online, and have found out that this is a lot more efficient than wasting time and money on getting there and back. Sure, there will be some business travel, but the old glory days of business travel are gone, nixed by corporate cost-cutters that have now found a functional alternative. And the airlines themselves have come to accept that.
Office occupancy plunged by the most in Dallas. In San Francisco, where it had already been rock-bottom, it dipped into the single digits. Read... The State of the American Office: Suddenly Emptying Out Again Under the Second Wave
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How ironic that the airline corporations are the ones who spread the virus across the globe, and we thank them with the most FREEE stimulus money of any company on Earth? I doubled my money on Delta this year, and have completely cashed out of the govt induced racket…so thanks Uncle Fed and Aunt Congress! I will donate more to charity this year so I can pretend I’m not also part of the problem. Corruption, capitalism…hard to tell the difference nowadays…
Food for thought on how we have trained airlines to NEVER save for a rainy day, per WP:
Almost seven out of every eight dollars the four airlines sent Wall Street from 2015 through 2019–$39.1 billion out of $44.7 billion — went for share buybacks. The rest went for dividends, according to my calculations based on the companies’ Securities & Exchange Commission filings.
In summary: Let the business die!
The 3 major US airlines (American, United and Delta) have undergone bankruptcy before, and they are still alive today. Why can’t we let them fail again this time?
By the time, I would like to see leisure travel to crash, the more the better. In my opinion, travel is a privilege, not a right. We have seen many irresponsible travelers messing in other countries. Here is an example:
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/travel-is-a-privilege-not-a-right/article24922925/
I don’t wanna get on a flight where passengers are packed like sardines.
Who is going to fund an airline bankruptcy with a quarterly burn rate of $2 billion+?
Even the best MBA at McKinsey can’t restructure that balance sheet.
Apple,
The daily cash burn rate will come down a lot if you remove $20 billion in debt in a bankruptcy. That’s a lot of debt service that wouldn’t need to be made. You can also shed aircraft leases, property leases, and other liabilities/expenses. Last time, the airlines filed for bankruptcy, they did so to shed their pension plans, I believe. There is a lot of cost-cutting that can get done in bankruptcy court.
Sure they could. They are Masters of the Universe, aren’t they?
So you are saying that the freedom of movement is a privilege? Given to us by whom? Our overlords? If you would like to join the growing ranks of serfs that are bound to your locality without freedom to move, then go ahead. But don’t sign the rest of us up for that.
So once the freedom of movement becomes a privilege given to us by our government overlords, then don’t expect the other freedoms to last anymore either.
So business people are and will continue to travel on private or charter jets. What companies in that segment have stocks we should be watching?
I was thinking the same. The low end market may be nonexistent, but the high-end is probably soaring just fine to new levels and way beyond any blue horizons.
ERJ (Embraer)/TXT (Beechcraft King Air & Cessna Citation)/GD (Gulfstream)/Airbus (Bombardier-Challenger-Lear).
GE’s aviation division picking up altitude.
BA’s comm. aircraft division comprises 15% company’s revenue, the majority comes from military contracts/satellite and data mgmt. Many of BA’s programs are ‘black’ (gov’t-intelligence origin), similar to LMT.
Very profitable & and the RFP’s never ask “how much”, only “when do we get it”?
Partial share are similar to HOA scams.
A while back, Netjets (Buffett) leaked out that 60% of their clients did not renew their contract after one year. Lots of creative backend billing of (operational) expenses are off loaded to the smallest % users.
Which gets future owners to step up and set up their own flt dept. after experiencing bait & switch from partial share organization.
NBAA: lobbying group for biz aviation. AOPA is small aircraft lobby sector.
Happy Trails…..
@Sam
According to Forbes
“(1) Boeing Commercial Aircrafts:
This segment accounted for 60% of the total revenue generated by Boeing in 2018.”
The executive jet sector may not be the highest priority under the new regime. Boeing has a defense role to improve the optics of a bail out.
Remember the tongue lashing when the GM execs flew private jet to their bailout hearings?
That commute cost more (because of the size of support staff attached to each CEO) than had they travelled on company(s) ships. NBAA crunched the #’s but no one wanted to embrace the truth as politicians thrive on the emotions of Kabuki theater.
Back of napkin financials on execu-tubes ops: min three passengers travelling (min) 250 hrs per year will have more productivity than had same members travelled by cattle car.
Do not confuse operational costs with productivity gains.
Bean counters utilize MBS mode (mgmt by spreadsheet) that apply short term Band-Aids w/out regards to LT implications. Hence why BA’s leadership is where its at today.
Note: Buffett use to term corp. jet usage as “indefensible”
‘TILL he got one. Then bought Netjets. Walmart has a fleet of 20 jets in US/two in CN that roll seven days a week.
It’s not a toy, it’s a tool to get things done. Better/Faster/ect.
@Sam
But but but GLOBULL warming!!!!!!!!
Sam’s response is both true and another view of the real problem. GM costs high? Take a look at the executives!!!
Ahhh for the good old days when worldwide disaster can be averted with a mere bailout cycle.
OK back to air travel…on the cue…
Corporate borrowing across the board to fund dividend pay-outs and stock buybacks is a key element to why Corporate U.S.A. is in such dire financial condition with a cratering in demand and, hence, revenues. I think Corporate Debt to Total Assets has never been this high.
The thought of bailing out such self-serving behavior with public funds is quite sickening in a country already BROKE. Stockholders have benefited greatly while corporate executives and board members have become multi-millionaires with the pumped up stock prices allowing executive stock options to be exercised at much shorter than normal intervals and at very favorable prices.
JUST SAY “NO” TO CORPORATE BAIL-OUTS. The Great Reset is here, and it is not anything like what forecasters had expected.
I have severe cognitive dissonance about airlines:
o On the positive side, as a retired geeezr, I’m enjoying my retirement, which, pre-Covid, included 3-4 international trips a year (LOTS of airline flights & eye-opening experiences).
o On the negative side, an international airline trip is like paying a few thousand dollars to send yourself to the worst prison in the country for a few days while you get bad food and unmitigated treatment as a criminal. Airline management willingly makes the experience as punitive as possible.
I don’t want the airlines to die, but I wouldn’t mind if the standard airline management mind-set did.
JC, after 35+ years of business travel on all airlines, I recall several airlines that treated us like “customers” with great food and service. Most of them went belly up several years ago. Now all we have left (U.S. carriers) are cattle haulers. A few Asian carriers still have great service these days.
As a retired old geezer too, I am not interested in airline travel one bit, virus or otherwise.
EV Air for the win!!!!
The food is actually good taboot.
I’m an EVA fan also – but you also can’t go wrong with most of the other Asian carriers. Even China Southern is better than anything based in the states.
To each their own, but when the Hong Kong airline employee strikes were happening 2-3 years ago, EVA was poorly prepared. That resulted in multiple changes and aggravations for me, none of which they either cared about or compensated me for.
Old geezers unite, I have cancelled two trips to Europe because of the virus and travel restrictions, and I will not rebook them. I would much rather book a trip across America on the the Amtrak Empire builder to Glacier National Park
What happens when all travel documents require proof of having been vaccinated in order to use any public conveyance? The airlines are looking at the vaccine as a light at the end of the cash burn tunnel. Yikes.
PS. Did someone say black market in fake vaccine approval documentation?
My best vacations were charter trips sold by Liberty Travel in NYC. The charter operator would schedule a flight and hotel rooms, transfers, and some meals to a destination and sell them at a reasonable price range depending on the hotel/room chosen. It was always a great deal and we went on a different trip every year. Too bad nobody is doing this at an affordable price.
Charter flights were popular when airline fares were still regulated by the Civil Aeronautics Board and charters were a way of getting around high international fares to Europe. They were definitely a win for passengers.
Gate 1 Travel are amazing. Classic and Discovery. Discovery comparable to OAT’s but 20-25% cheaper.
Liberty travel left me stranded in a remote village in Philippines after telling me to pick up the return ticket in Manila where they knew nothing about it. There were no phones in village. Travel to Phone took four hours. And it rarely worked. This was 1985
Oh for the days of PanAm
I just hope you had better experiences on PanAm than my family had.
1st ever flight, Berlin to Hamburg, round trip, airplanes survivors of the Airlift. OK it was in 1954.
2nd flight, my mother flew Rio de Janeiro to Berlin. FA were arrogant to the max.
3rd Experience, I flew NYC to Rio. Food lousy and three hours to RIO nothing to drink. Thank God I hitched a ride on a C141, Rio to Charleston, box lunch best steak ever, able to move around, and seats were better than coach on PanAm, cheaper too?
Forgot to add last PanAm flight was 1969. So well spread out time line.
Thank you for your service! ✈
Pan Am and TWA. Back in the 70s they’d regularly fly half empty planes on international routes. You could get three seats all to yourself and snooze for most of the trip.
Chip:
You have been flying on the WRONG airlines then.
Singapore Business Class with their lounges is outstanding.
Japan Airlines Business Class is very, very good too.
Qantas – well, a lot of times here in OZ you didn’t have a choice as a result of limited capacity. Safe, but price, service, on time rates stink. Their Business Class lounge at Narita isn’t very good.
Other airlines I’ve flown range from really good to pathetic.
Remember Northwest Airlines?
We called it NorthWORST. One of worst airlines in the world as far as service goes, but often, again, no choice as to carriers depending on your travel destination.
One time flying out of Hawai’i back to Japan we did the early checkin and when it came to board we found out that our three sets together had mysteriously disappeared between that time and boarding time and they wanted to seat us in three different places. Kind of ridiculous and not very safe to do that with a 5 year child.
What followed was a very heated discussion with the various people at the gate. At that time we were flying cattle class (which back then was quite spacious.
They wouldn’t even move another person so one of us could sit with our child. After more heated discussion we were put in the Business Class section, but the head stewdess told us that and I quote:
“No economy class passenger sitting in Business Class is going to get a Business Class meal on my airplane.”
We didn’t and after the trip I wrote a ‘nice’ letter to NWA and that was the last time we ever flew them. Never did get a reply either.
Most dangerous civilian airline had to have been Pakistan Airlines. Some idiot fired up their cooking stove on one of the flights I was on. Later they had a plane crash as a result of someone doing that on another flight.
Then there was LIAT – Leeward Islands Air Transport or as we used to call it: Leave Islands Any Time. They would often cancel the flights if there were not enough people for the flight. Your 10:00am flight might leave at 3:00pm later that day or it might be cancelled and fly the next day.
Military aircraft were another story altogether. Best flights were the ones where you didn’t have to worry about customs, immigration or any other such nonsense at your destination. Not very comfortable flights though!
I often wondered what the US immigration people thought about that when I flew back to the USA without any stamps in my passport………..
Business travel is probably not coming back. I have already seen over the last 20 years in my industry a significant shift from physical presence at sites and in meetings to virtual review thanks to electronic documentation and teleconferencing. Even after whatever vaccines are in place, the reality is business has demonstrated that they do not need to go to a location to conduct business – nor, given the potential of future outbreaks, will other businesses willingly welcome-in people from outside of their office due to risk.
I have been traveling regularly once a month since the middle of the year. Traffic is significantly down in the regional airports I go through but appears closer to normal in the hub airports. Traffic has picked up a bit, but frankly I do not understand how regional airports are currently making it.
As to tourist travel – I think it is too early to assess yet. Tourism via air travel is a largely disposable income based item and given the depth of the economic disruption, there is less of that available. Add to that people feeling uncomfortable or unsafe traveling and restrictions on where you are going (who wants to travel somewhere just to sit 14 days in quarantine and find out you cannot go to a restaurant or attractions) and it will be a very long time before travel looks even remotely like it did a year ago.
I am no expert, but I suspect two sorts of airlines will survive: ones that are directly supported by their national governments and ones that handle cheaper air travel (e.g., Southwest).
The point of most business travel is to show Leadership – Get a flight at the latest possible moment, ensuring that the ticket will be 1’st class, the hotel room the most expensive available at the destination and don’t ever stay long enough to enjoy any of it, because, that would be weak and One is indispensable (why one needs to compact everything till the last minute)!
The conspicuous wasting of ressources is showing that one is important enough to make Finance sign off on anything, that gig never gets old and will come roaring back in 2-3 years.
I don’t deny that this happens, but I think it’s much less common than you think, and I think it’ll be much less tolerated in the future.
For the first time in a year I’ll board a plane in ~ 2 weeks. This should be interesting…
One retired friend is a teacher. He was all of the idea that teachers should not go back to work for safety reasons. Yet he snd his immune compromised wife flew a few months back, smug in the idea their masks & face sheilds would protect them.
Of course I’ll be wearing a mask, an N95 one no less. But really, with all the focus on the planes, it’s the airports that are the bigger “danger zones”.
Which then leads me to wonder how big a hole has been blown in airport budgets this past year.
It all didn’t have to be this way. We’ve take the absolute worst approaches to every aspect of dealing with this virus.
And of course in a world where the Fed has reduced cash to trash, and the financial authorities are MIA, corporate governance has been reduced to looting the company for C-suite bonuses ASAP. It didn’t have to be that way either.
I can’t blame those at the bottom for how pissed they are at those at the top. Never any accountability at the top.
Welcome to the Fourth Turning.
America is unique. We’ve skipped the Fourth and gone straight to Sixth … a period where the stock markets can no longer crash.
Why do people persist in the belief that masks are about protecting yourself from getting the virus? They are not. They are about decreasing the spread by reducing the velocity of airflow out of people’s faces and into the environment. You are protecting others when you wear a mask, not yourself.
This is simply not true. They protect the wearer and others.
Some protection is afforded by non-N95 masks, but only to a limited degree.
Masks will deflect droplets transmission, but do little to impede aerosolized virus particle spread (which is believed to be main vector route for Covid-19).
That said, masks may reduce amount of inoculum exposure (virus dose) in a given situation. Less inoculum = potentially less severe infection.
Also, Coronavirus can infect by settling on your eyes– that is another potential infectable membrane besides nose and throat. I don’t see many mask wearers wearing goggles these days.
RightNYer
Every time you touch the mask, you contaminate it just as you would touching your face.
I wear one because I accept the premise of reduced velocity (spread) of airflow. It’s a reasonable courtesy.
The official bullshit reason is to protect others from you.
You, are correct!
Zantetsu, is to whom I refer as being carrect.
Oh?
https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20201111/masks-protect-wearers-and-others-from-covid-19
“Which then leads me to wonder how big a hole has been blown in airport budgets this past year.”
My guess is that the budget hole, when the pandemic dust settles, will be big enough to fly a 747 through.
As a case in point, Kansas City, MO voters earlier approved a new airport terminal at their KCI airport. Construction is now proceeding on the $1.5 billion project with a 2023 opening date.
They had option of refurbishing existing (and beloved by residents) KCI terminal (opened in 1972). Nope, city officials wanted a brand new shiny one to garnish the city image.
City council and mayor convinced voters that taxpayers would be totally off the hook for this project— it would be funded by aviation bonds that would be payed back for by fees imposed on airlines and travelers.
So, if air travel is muted going forward I wonder about future funding issues for this new airport terminal. Will ruinous fees and taxes be imposed on airlines and their passengers to bridge any funding gap?
Is there a clause hidden somewhere in the project agreement that taxpayers are a last recourse if funding goes haywire?
Break out the popcorn and stay tuned.
Add in the immunity passport, and no way I’ll be flying anytime soon.
In the 1950s and 60s you still had to have a vaccination pass with for international travel. Originated by the WHO under UN auspices IIRC.
Nothing new under the sun, except apparently ship don’t hoist the yellow jacket, it is another letter code now.
I still have the vaccination paperwork showing all shots I got that were required, as a tot traveling overseas on TWA in 1950s.
They annualize quarterly GDP, but not cash burn rate? Thanks Wolf for pointing that out.
The only entity on Planet Earth that burns more cash than airlines is the Federal Reserve. Did anyone notice that between November 16 to November 23, M1 Money Stock increased $497,900,000,000? So almost half a Trillion increase in one week??? I know Trillion is the new Billion, but that is a huge spike in 7 days! Time to sic “The Wolf” on the Fed…HA
Yort,
It’s not the Fed that’s doing this. Check out the list of what goes into M1 money stock.
Ambrose Bierce,
Daily cash burn is $11 billion annualized ?
There is a solution to that… Covid passport. I can already see this as a potential ancillary revenue stream for the airlines. Can you say: SCORE.
Alabama Public Health Director said this week general inoculations for the public are expected to begin in JUNE 2021.
Article in WaPo today says vaccine delivery rates are expected to be about 1/10 of what was originally promised.
So, if things go well (vaccine is really >85% effective in mass usage, 80% to 90% of population get the two doses, vaccine deliveries not reduced further), maybe 3rd CY quarter 2021?
By the time they get there, the seasonality of it will again have passed, herd immmnity will be significantly larger, probably more mutations along the way, and Biden will be claiming victory for what nature dispensed.
Since Trump will still be claiming that he won the election, he’ll be taking credit for “victory” over the virus.
Did Biden have something to do with the development of the vaccines? Was it retroactive?
@Old Engineer,
In Canada some people were freaking out because our first round of inoculations are starting 1st week January. People were complaining, “How come we’re so late”? etc etc etc.
It’s in a month. Just one month. I would rather have a measured and accurate rollout than chaos and false promises. Regardless, I feel we made it this far and the rest is now downhill with something to be positive about.
The way it is working here is that there will be a central refrigeration hub in each province. The military has purchased the mega freezers and will set those up for deliveries. The pharma companies deliver their own vaccine to each central hub. Then, each province will establish their own method of distribution with localised refrigeration. In BC it will likely be based on our 6 health regions. The freezers are already purchased. Considering the Province stretches from the coast as far east as Montana, and north as far as 60 deg lat, it is a big undertaking to say the least. What will make it easier is existing cooperation with the Feds, and that we have a public health system already organised for distribution and logistics. Furthermore, all records are centralised within the provincial medical system registries. Indigenous communities are accounted for both by Feds and provinces.
I don’t see how the rollout will work in a private for profit system that is also planning to use private pharmacies? Who does the notifications and record keeping? What about communities with no health facility nearby? Who pulls rank and makes decisions when there are competing health care providers? What happens to people with no doctor or health care insurance?
I think there will be a very steep learning curve in every locale. But….!!!! there is a glimpse of the end and when that happens people will tentatively return to air travel, restaurants, and vacations.
I also bet there will be scads of darn nice almost new RVs for sale. :-)
It’s been a little chaotic already with tests. Free tests are mandated but in rural areas the county workers who do outreach on them don’t always know where to send people. Free test locations are subject to change at times and availability changes. Tests still run out. Nurses still run out of supplies. Private companies who contract for testing cancel out because they don’t make enough money in rural areas. People who have been exposed and do not have health insurance do not want the county to know about them because (right or not) they’re afraid they’d have to pay for more tests.
Hopefully they are co-ordinated with Native tribes. IDK though, they seem to have a very difficult time co-ordinating law enforcement- we just had a grisly couple of murders possibly connecting with some very dark stuff and the intersecting jurisdictions are very complex.. If the sheriff and tribal police chief on that rez didn’t have a good relationship to start with possibly nothing much at all would happen to the murderers..
What I’m mostly worried about is that it is stored at the right temperature. I probably won’t get a vaccine till I think that is consistent for the general population. But- I’ve already had Corona- I think 2ce, 9 mths apart. The first time was very very bad. The second time tested pos and was very mild. But it felt like exactly the same thing.
“I also bet there will be scads of darn nice almost new RVs for sale. :-)”
Probably. And 4×4’s. Probably a lot of dogs brought back to the shelters as well. I just hope there are lower priced fixer houses..
Your system should work very well. But as you said about private pharmacies and private inoculation providers, it is going to be confusing at best, and dysfunctional at worst, in the US.
I’m also worried that we no longer have the process discipline to maintain the required handling requirements for the refrigerated vaccines. And I wonder how many spoiled doses will be administered.
I don’t discuss it much, because it depresses people, but I think it may well be a nightmare.
With a bit of conversion foresight by local/regional authorities we will be able to claim the US has the world’s most costly dragstrips with car classes such as D, C, AA, & AAA cells. The two RC operators can do battle from the safety of the old control tower. It will be boomtown for motels when the attendies flock in. So why don’t airlines use our favorite term “Annualized” when discussing the downside? Could it be that they don’t like charts which cross the zero axis and resemble a flight path strait into a ground crater?
Even billionaires think the airlines should be allowed to fail, per Yahoo Finance:
“I’m not worried about business in America, I’m worried about people in America,” O’Leary told Yahoo Finance Live. “I’d much rather have a stimulus package that gives individual checks or extends unemployment benefits for the next 14 months. The idea that the government can pick winners and losers in business has clearly been demonstrated to be false.”
O’Leary said the government should “stop funding companies” and bail out Americans instead. He said a third of the federal Payment Protection Program (PPP) loan money designed to provide a direct incentive for small businesses to keep their workers on the payroll during the pandemic was “wasted” to fraud and abuse.
“Why do I want to bail out the shareholders of an airline when really it should go bankrupt?” O’Leary asked. “The middle name of airlines is bankruptcy. They do it well, every seven to 10 years. Let them do it again, to downsize because I don’t need them, the S&P doesn’t need them. We don’t need to fly everywhere anymore. We can do it on a Zoom call. I want to take care of the flight attendants and the people that used to work at those airlines, but that’s just one sector of the economy.”
Powell has completely normalized massive QE and eternal ZIRP as the go-to “tool in the tool box” to fight any economic ill and to implement Fed policy of making stocks go up forever and to fight any fire with eternally more debt.
Granting the Fed the power of QE in 2008 has resulted in it’s eternal use and ZIRP, just like the AUMF in 1993 resulted in our non stop Forever Wars.
Very succinctly put, Timbers. If people only realised the Fed is owned by the Too-Big-To-Fail-Banks, they would understand that this both means virtually interest-free trillions to those banks which also justifies their paying savers virtually zero interest. Their also working 24/7 behind the scenes to create an all-digital regime which would enable no-recourse NIRP makes me very suspicious that COVID started here, not China (see, for example Sen Sherrod Brown’s “Banking For All” SB 3571, supposedly to create accounts to permit handouts to COVID victims: https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/3571/text
Take away O’Leary’s access to private jets. Then let’s review his unbiased opinion.
I don’t listen to these tools at all.
If people think flying is safe, then, they need to jump on a plane and take on that risk, who cares?
I view the virus like second-hand smoke or garlic-breath, i.e., if I were on a plane with a mask, would I be able to smell the air of the strangers near me — probably and most likely. Will an air filter on an airline change the ongoing breath of someone during a 4 hour flight and limit my exposure, if they’re contagious, or will the exposure to some idiots political rights infect me?
Obviously, the poison political environment, mixed with vaccine uncertainty, misinformation, distorted lies, test inaccuracy and a tsunami of idiots will continue to keep the vast majority of our population from booking flights, for a long time.
Then, mix-in the pending budget circus and the potential delay connected to electoral college processing, linked to a GOP coup to thwart the popular vote and it’s not hard to see that synthetic performance of stock markets will at some point crash back to regression reality. Pandemic fun hasn’t even started, but the airlines are a fine barometer for what’s ahead.
‘synthetic performance of stock markets will at some point crash back to regression reality’
At ‘what point’ is the contentious issue NOT amenable to any rationale or logic so far!
Fortunes have been made by those who followed the ‘narrative’ blindly (Buy the dips, trust Fed’s put, ignore fundamentals, it is different this time++) vs those who tried to analyze with cool, historical facts and sanity.
All thanks to Fed & CBers. The next crash (sudden or slow) will be blamed on Covid although, we all know who the real culprits are!
Re: “At ‘what point’ is the contentious issue NOT amenable to any rationale or logic so far!”
I’ve been entertaining myself lately looking at FRED charts, but have just started focusing on comparing charts using the Natural Log function.
I still think this pandemic and its economic shocks are like a tsunami, and as such non-linear, thus in this stage of chaos, the markets make no sense, as they explode upward, but I do sense we are going to regress towards a more smoothed out linear phase, and the excess in play now, will vanish.
That being said, I also sense a fairly new market dynamic which apparently started almost as soon as trump was elected in 2016. My natural log stuff shows a clear shift in excess speculation, mixed with less volatility and a denial of risk based investing. That dynamic obviously was supercharged with the pandemic, however, within that 4 year period, GDP was weak, and treasury yields falling.
I’m still looking at that, but can’t imagine our world will survive just on short term high frequency trading, and fewer people investing in longer term financing. Maybe this stage is different, but when this type of mentality sets in, it’s never ever lasted.
Who the hell is O’Leary?
His statement “…We don’t need to fly everywhere anymore. We can do it on a Zoom call…”.
His comment is pretty cavalier about 7.8M tourism jobs (includes business travel) representing 2.8% of US economy; and frankly, I could give a crap about Zoom.
O’ Leary is the boss at Ryanair . The only low cost airline that makes a profit . Ryanair is based in Ireland .
O’Leary has no skin in our game. Who is he to spout off about what we can and can’t do in the U.S.?
Is that a serious question? If so, why not turn it around. Who are you to spout off about an Irish businessman that you don’t know or have any dealings with?
Kevin O’Leary, Canadian Businessman Billionaire, shark tank investor, CNBC commentator, etc.
Concerning N95 masks, I have worn them for decades when around dust particles of various types that are know to cause lung cancer with long term exposure. They block 95% (N95 rating) if worn correctly. In theory, they should block 95% of certain size virus, if not worn out and wore correctly…and at the very least it reduces the viral loading. Viral loading is what determines if our immune systems get over-whelmed, how much reaches deep into the lungs, etc. Viral loading is much less outside vs inside, so just being outside is very effective to reduce chances of getting a virus by up to 2,000% (similiar to say concrete dust from grinding concrete inside vs outside…safer to grind outside as you get less dust”loading” as the is blown awan and not trapped in a contained space). As far as wearing a surgical mask, cloth rag, etc…not even close to 95% blockage due to material limits and/or lack of physical fit to face. That said, I only see about 10% of people wear N95…so yeah, “masks” many not do much as most wear “kinda-masks”…and get “kinda-blockage”. To say a N95 does not reduce the intake or exit of virus particles from a human mouth would defy basic particle physics.
I would assume that is why he could care less about American businesses.
He is your weee lil Leprechaun who has run amok in Europe over the last two decades blasting away Competitive airlines for the most part. Perfectly happy to make you pay for the privilege of using bathrooms on airplane if he thought he could get away with it.
Airline ticket pricing is like the perfect examine of the irrationality of the consumer. They will refuse to pay higher prices, and then complain that services are terrible.
It’s a race to the bottom driven by the consumer who will choose a $350 flight over a $375 flight and then complain that they don’t get as much as they used to get when they paid $750 for the same flight.
I personally have ZERO problem with airline service, knowing how much I am getting for my money. Sure flights are not a “luxurious” experience where I can feel like I am sitting in my living room with someone else on call to get drinks and food for me from the fridge, but they aren’t torture either. And more importantly, the safety record of the industry is excellent.
The only flight I really think was a bad deal was when I had to sit on the tarmac in Heathrow for over 6 hours while we waited through several announcements of unexpected maintenance issues, eventually people became hysterical with a combination of anger and stir-crazines and a belief that any maintenance issue that kept us on the tarmac for that long was surely going to cause the plane to crash. People were literally begging to be let off of the plane. Eventually they drove us back to the gate and put us all in a hotel to resume the flight the next day.
That was the only time I’ve ever flown when I thought I got screwed by the airline. Every other time I have gotten exactly what I have paid for, no more and no less.
See, that’s the thing, the rational consumer understands that the race to the bottom means ever poorer level of service and quality. You want to buy a $700 bed, no problem, those are all over the place, and you can haggle back and forth, and get a few percentage knocked off.
Or you pay $3000 for a bed… it’s so hugely expensive. But I think it comes down to the situation, and a rational examination. We spend up to a third of our lives in bed. So, it makes sense to get something that’s truly comfortable, and pay money for it. After all, it’s a capital purchase.
But with something transitory like airline service, you are absolutely right, you get what you pay for, and one has to set expectations correctly. For example, when I fly to Hawaii, I’d like to take Alaska or Hawaiian, because they have slightly better service than the main lines. I’m willing to pay a bit extra for it.
With Ryanair, if the expectation is a cattle cart that gets you close enough. Then you’re perfectly happy. If the expectation is perfect service with wine and caviar… boy, that would be a misunderstanding of the situation.
The trouble is all US airlines are bare-bones service now. I would pay $25 extra if an airline consistently offered better service but I rarely have that choice in the US.
I think I coughed up an O’leary several years ago. I think I felt better afterwards. Just piling on because I got nuttin’ good to add other than the airlines need to go through bankruptcy on a regular schedule.
Until the US public get totally real about COVID 19 and Biden convinces at least half the eligible population to partake in a nation wide vaccination programme, to cull COVID to a manageable level with falling fatalities, airline pax miles will be severely contained. The U.K. starts its vaccination programme next Tuesday, and with a population a fifth of the USA, the timetable of two jabs per eligible candidate is not expected to be completed until 2022. Most European airlines are not expecting 2019 pax levels to return until early 2024. If America can get its vaccination logistics and supplies sorted maybe they can airborne by late 2023 and overtake 2019 traffic figures for pax. Finally nobody knows how long immunity will last with each vaccine. It could be like the flu jab, taken annually. Meanwhile there are some optimists out there. Micheal O’Leary of RYANAIR has doubled his order for Boeing MAX or whatever they finally call it. He will leave his older fully paid for 737 NG’s parked up and take advantage of the 16 per cent better fuel economy of the MAX to take market share from other airlines. With Norwegian bust, that just leaves RYANAIR and Easy Jet with large fleets of Airbus Neo versus Boeing MAX to fight it out to dominate the low cost pax European market. The IAG group and other European airlines will continue to be battered by the Gulf giants, Etihad, Qatar and Emirates plus Turkish airlines. Airline shares are for chancers and banks who are becoming owners of mixed mothballed fleets with an uncertain future.
No one talks or plans for how these vaccines are actually going to be distributed to the public. I was in 3rd grade back in 1970 when the nationwide vaccination program was instituted for Rubella. They decided it was too difficult to inoculate the entire population so it was determined that another epidemic of this disease ,that causes horrible birth defects , could be accomplished by vaccinating kids from first thru third grade. Every kid was marched to the cafeteria ( no permission forms needed) and inoculated with ,army developed ,jet stream injection guns. After a year they had managed to inoculate 23 million kids. Now they think 200-300 million people will be inoculated with no such focused plan. Remember that was at a time when the U.S. was at the peak of its powers and had recently put a man on the moon.
“Weakness can be coached to average, but strength can be leveraged to the moon.”— Laurence Endersen
But we have YouTube and Twitter now. We’ll teach everyone how to inoculate themselves through a series of DIY videos and tweets.
Share and share alike!!!
Pharmacies per person varies greatly across the U.S. The area with the lowest number of pharmacies per person is the Pacific NW with only 1.3 pharmacies per 10,000 persons and that includes many that are inaccessible to the public such as those in prisons, or Long Term Care facilities. So for a population of 575,000 a total of 74 pharmacies could be expected. Once one removes all those inaccessible to the public then a total of 40 that are potentially available for inoculations is a logical number. I think driving outside the Pacific NW to get to somewhere with better pharmacy availability would a bit longer than 20 miles.
Seneca’s Cliff
There are over 88,000 pharmacies in the US; state laws undoubtedly vary, but here in FL, most are licensed to offer various vaccines.
I also understand there may be severe refrigeration requirements for some vaccinations, however:
88,000 pharmacies doing 30 Covid vaccines a day for 100 days =
264,000,000 vaccinations (at this rate, 23,000,000 vaccines could be administered in less than 9 days).
Above number doesn’t include vaccinations given in other venues (doctor office, health clinic, schools, offices, etc).
World has changed since 1970
You can subtract at least one because I ain’t interested in a “vaccine”.
“Former Pfizer vice president and scientific director Dr. Michael Yeadon and German lung specialist and parliamentarian Dr. Wolfgang Wodarg have filed an urgent application with the European Medicine Agency calling for the immediate suspension of all SARS-CoV-2 vaccine studies – particularly the BioNtech/Pfizer study on BNT162b (EudraCT number 2020-002641-42).
The vaccinations are expected to produce antibodies against spike proteins of SARS-CoV-2. However, spike proteins also contain syncytin-homologous proteins, which are essential for the formation of the placenta in mammals such as humans. It must be absolutely ruled out that a vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 could trigger an immune reaction against syncytin-1, as otherwise infertility of indefinite duration could result in vaccinated women.”
In what universe would ” … absolutely ruled out that a vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 could trigger an immune reaction against syncytin-1 …” just happen without any studies?
Virtue signaling noted.
I’d guess you wouldn’t vaccinate a child for MMR. The chance of a child dying of measles (not the vaccine) is 15 times higher than dying in a car accident this year.
Just because some people are literally afraid of their own shadow and it has a fancy name (sciaphobia), still doesn’t mean anybody has ever been attacked by their own shadow.
Yes, the world has changed since then, back in the early 70’s we could land on the moon, fly on supersonic passenger planes, afford to go to college without debt, make airplanes that did not crash ( 747 vs 737max), engineer and build useful fighter jets and have state unemployment divisions that could actually distribute unemployment benefits on time. Before you pin your hopes for an efficient rollout of the vaccine on Walgreens you might want to go in one. Two weeks ago a couple had to cancel their trip to Hawaii after landing in the islands after a homeless guy stole the COVID Test samples out of a collection box at at Walgreens.
Seneca’s Cliff
Off topic but humorous collection of straw man arguments having exactly nothing to do with your original bleat:
“…After a year they had managed to inoculate 23 million kids. Now they think 200-300 million people will be inoculated with no such focused plan..”.
Your logic on a single criminal act stealing (used) Walgreens Covid swabs escapes me.
I simply pointed out that 88,000 determined people with syringes can inoculate a hell of a lot of people in a very short amount of time.
Here is another way to look at the math. In Washington county Oregon ,where I live ,there are 39 pharmacies capable of innoculations ,including the ones in the three hospitals. This is for a population of 575,000. So by your 10 inoculations per day per pharmacy math it would take them 3.8 years to get the job done.
Seneca’s Cliff
1) US ratio of population per pharmacy is 3,500 to 1; you claim Washington county is 14,750 to 1 (ie: 4 times higher). I doubt a county population of over half a million only has 39 pharmacies.
2) Even if your numbers were accurate:
575,000 population/39 pharmacies @ 30/day = 491 days.
3) Why do you assume citizens of Washington County Oregon are too…ummm…let’s call them “unmotivated”, to drive 20 miles away for better service?
They could easily do 100 inoculations a day. All done in 4.5 months.
I got my flu shot at the Walgreens down the street about a month ago. The paperwork took about two minutes, and this was handled by one person, while another person administered the shot in a private area. This took another minute or so. They can probably administer 30 shots an hour. So from 6 am – 9 pm, they could maybe administer 450 shots, in one day.
At the Kaiser facility where I normally get my shot, this is done in the main lobby. During busy times, there are over a dozen nurses, giving shots. The administrative work is done separately. This is true mass production, with long fast-moving lines during busy times. They can do several hundred shots per hour.
There are medical buildings and pharmacies all over the place. This is a huge industry in the US. So if there is sufficient supply, they can give out a lot of shots in a few months.
Wolf: I remember last year you made a great call shorting the market early in the year. What do you think of the current stock market? Would you short it here?
I’m already short. And I’m very nervous about it. The reasons for my short are all lining up perfectly. Except that the bullishness of this market has totally withstood reality so far.
Wolf,
The nearly 35% dive of S&P in late March was completely reversed by Fed’s spigot 3 Trillions and week or two later. My short term gains by my puts got all, riversed some immediately and some slowly!
What gurantee that Fed/CBers won’t shower more Trillions, when ever the there is leak from this 3rd largest everything bubble created by them? The surreality of the mkts is beyond comprehension for any rational investor.
I’m short (at 360) and it boils down to my own refusal to accept reality: “the market” is just a transfer mechanism to move wealth from America to shareholders. The underlying companies don’t matter any more. Their “value” is a function of Fed liquidity — nothing else matters.
And, the Fed can’t stop now. We’ve passed the event horizon. I know this, but I don’t want it to be true, and that’s caused me to make a bad decision. I can afford it, and I’ll probably cover soon — but the grieving process takes time.
It isn’t surreal for a rational non investor. It’s quite clear that investing in this market is irrational and only encourages more irrationality.
I think the time has come for additional consolidation in the airline industry in the US. Logically the majors need to emerge, the combination of United, Delta, American, and uhhhh… is there another US airline that starts with the letter D. They could unite to form an airline called UnDeAD.
It will be a monster airline with a scale and capacity and financial resources to compete with the likes of Southwest. Then when the inevitably poorly run behemoth gets in trouble again and need a bailout, the appellation Zombie company could truly apply to that airline.
Oh… forgot to add, instead of saying: brain… brain… it will be saying to Congress: Bailout…. bailout…
They’ll just gear up for autopiliots.
“Delay?” he cried, “Have you seen the world outside this ship? It’s a wasteland, a desert. Civilization’s been and gone, man. There are no lemon-soaked paper napkins on the way from anywhere!”
“The statistical likelihood,” continued the autopilot primly, “is that other civilizations will arise. There will one day be lemon-soaked paper napkins. Till then there will be a short delay. Please return to your seat.”
(HHGG. The book was much much better than the attempt at a movie or series or whatever it was.)
I said starting back in April or May what the airlines are finally acknowledging now. Certain business trips, like work retreats and conferences (which are really just an excuse to network and mingle for 3-4 days) will come back. But the days of flying across the country for a two hour meeting are over.
Everyone realizes now that it was a waste of time and a waste of money. And outside of single 24 year olds, almost nobody likes doing it anyway.
At Uber, a meeting was being scheduled. Instead of using Zoom or any other videochat for a meeting, they all flew to Fiji.
When was this?
When Travis was CEO and the company was at peak wastefulness.
The number of people employed to total population ratio has dropped 3.8% since February (BLS). Some people retired early and are not spending their savings on luxury cruise trips or flights to far away places.
COVID-19 is now the leading cause of death in America.
David Hall
Nope.
1. Heart disease @ 635,000/yr
2. Cancer @ 598,000/YR
JC
I was going to point out the same stats but you were faster!
635K/yr ~ 1740 / day.
Current 7-day average Covid deaths ~ 2250 / day.
Covid is the leading cause of death by a significant margin and will get much worse in the coming weeks.
Can’t use peak number for average, let alone the number will be way down in a few months.
I figured someone would chime in with that. And I’d agree with you if I was cherry picking a peak like using 9/11/01 to determine chances of dying in a plane crash, or using a statistically insignificant short-term spike (like 10 deaths in 1 minute). But I’m not. That’s the current rate of death, and it’s consistent and predictable to good degree of certainty. In the neighborhood of 15K will die in the next week, likely well over 60K in the next month. And by the time hit the approx 1-year anniversary around Apr 1, the 1-year death toll will be right around the 500-600K mark of the above causes.
You can arbitrarily pick a time scale to make it seem insignificant. I mean those in Europe during WWII didn’t have anything to worry about, right? If you average over all of human history, the death rate is under 1000/yr.
I would think people would want to make risk assessment decisions based on the CURRENT risk and the annualized current risk is ~800,000 deaths/yr. The fact that it will be lower in a year doesn’t reduce your risk today.
Proof of immunity before a ticket sale or boarding might seem like a good idea marketing to an airline exec, but how many, even if they wanted to, will be able to provide that in the next 6-9 months?
Does anyone remember when you used to be able to ask for, and get, a deck of playing cards on longer flights? I still have a few:
TWA
Eastern
Pan Am
Delta
Yes, I have a few American Airlines decks and others.
The airlines used to give the small children little plastic airplane toys and other goodies. I flew a few times on business before deregulation in the early 1970’s (and many, many times afterward). The ticket prices were higher than these days, and the service was appropriate to the cost. Even drinks (alcohol) were free then.
I got some of those airline toys and was awarded captains. Pin by happy stewardess on my 1972 flight on pan am from Uk to USA.
I have a courtesy deck from Hooters Airlines. Talk about a full house!
But now they are not playing with a full deck :)
1) Congress saved zombie airlines and will do it again after one
of the biggest whales will fail.
2) Congress saved comatose small business and keep them on life support, but governors are killing them again, due to a failure of strategic
imagination.
Micheal,
“FSI” (failure of strategic imagination) extend to legislative bodies & mayors.
1) Get x2 PFE vaccine shots at (-) 70C into your blood stream, before
u fly. It might boil inside your body 97F temp and blow u up.
2) One billion people across the globe will get vaccine shots at $10 per shot.
3) Plenty profit to cover future lawsuits, before plenty hope stop, and we are back to square one, back to Mar 2020.
3) what lawsuits?
Government has conferred immunity on them.
You’ll have to seek some other form of recompense.
Some people didn’t get the memo. That’s why I said if there’s side effects to the vaccines, there will be riots for sure.
They’re counting on the narcolepsy to minimise rioting and pretty much everything else.
This is doomsday saying, not gonna happen. As many ppl get some antibody, the spreading will slow or down a lot. All gov will treat it like the flu. Business as usual.
The whole snafu is complex. My son lives and works in Japan and would love to come visit us in the US of A, but….
…if he flies anywhere international, he is required to home isolate for 40 days when he returns to Japan. Forty freakin’ days.
So, he won’t/can’t come home. Not yet, anyway.
40 days?
Really?
I heard it was two weeks and no use of public transport from the airport.
I spent 100 nights at Marriott properties last year and this year just 14; with the same amount of work accomplished in 20 percent less time. My business did better I have found as I was in the office more.
I will push hard to stick to this new way of doing business.
‘So if you are trim, exercize and don’t constantly carb out, and haven’t spent a lifetime smoking, the odds of succumbing to COVID19 are quite low’
Guess you haven’t read about post covid ‘long haulers’ some of whom were marathon runners, could run several stairs of steps straight without problembs before, now cannot. Covid also ‘uncovers’ the underlying disease, weakens organ’s function, once it attacks the immune system.
High blood pressure seems to be more of an indicator than smoking or moderate asthma. The virus will coagulate blood when it is a serious case.
Pan-Am no. one — Aug. 1966 – the gold standard — seattle -honolulu- hong kong
saigon–home in dec. 66–Bangkok -Delhi -Beirut- Athens –Frankfurt–NY
First chop– flight / accommodations and airline personnel The stuff of dreams–despite the
Indo China unpleasantness —Sic Transit Gloria Mundi !!!
?
1) The DOW reached 30,000. // S&P 500 Futures reached 3704.88 early this morning.
2) SPX to 6,000 and 70,000 DOW is FSI (a failure of strategic imagination).
3) Use what u got. // Don’t start from scratch. // Switch momo thinking.
4) The current SPX PnF have : 11 columns x 3 reversal x 30 pt.
5) Add min two columns for osc around Sept 2 high for a total of 13 columns.
6) 13 x 3 x 30 = 1170.
7) Add additional 4 columns on the way down for osc around June 8 high.
8) 17 x 3 x 30 = 1530.
9) Min target : 3690 – 1530 = 2160.
10) An overextended target from a potential cliff @ 3300 : 3300 – 1530 = 1770.
11) Targets range : 1800 to 2200.
12) Stay in the game with an open mind. // If wrong, SL.
An openly corner-cutting company like Ryanair cannot afford even one of their planes becoming a lawn-dart on takeoff. Ryanair have basically acquired several hangars full of accident potential, this will backfire.
The reason is that, while everyone suspects that corners are being cut on Ryanair maintenance and safety, their safety records says they haven’t.
O.T.O.H., If they have just one crash, everyone will suddenly know that corners were cut there also and the illusion of Ryanair as a safe, but, cheap airline shatters. Then very few people will want the hassle and harassment involved in travelling with them!
The Old Ones sells tickets at about the same price, especially once one factors in all of the Ryanairs Extras and the time spent navigating the booby-trapped ticket purchasing workflow.
Basic question:
If there is a pandemic raging in the USA why are airlines still allowed to fly?
Yesterday we had our first international flights arrive into Melbourne in something like 4 or 5 months.
All passengers went into quarantine for two weeks.
I haven’t flown since 2007. I will not pay one dime to fly anywhere. After my experience with American Airlines in that year and TWA in 1996, I’m done with them. If they all go bankrupt I’ll will celebrate. I may even have order a few extra Wolf Beer mugs to handle the alcoholic consumption that will ensue