Ben Smith's expectations for ramping up operations
 

Not sure this has already been posted somewhere (if so, forgive me):

In an interview https://www.latribune.fr/entreprises...se-844934.html Ben Smith expects the following capacity on the AFKL network:

• 20% in June
• 40% in July
• 60% in August
• 75% in the fourth quarter of the year

Also he says that

• A350 deliveries in May and June will happen
• No decision yet on A350/B787 deliveries due to happen later in the year
• A380 to leave fleet "earlier" (still not clear whether they are still flying and whether any of them will return to service when capacity is increased again)
• A220 deliveries due to start next autumn are maintained at least for the moment
• Expects that it will take two years for traffic to be back to 2019 levels (that is more optimistic than other large airlines' CEOs)

The company loses EUR 600M every month.

Interesting. That also means that the schedule currently loaded from June will not be executed in that way, as it spans pretty much the 'regular' schedule. There will be large additional cuts in (most likely) frequencies and maybe some destinations.

That gives us a little bit of hope! Let's see how things are going.

Ps: I desperately miss flying!

I wonder when they'll publish the schedules at least for the beginning of May. It's in a bit more than two weeks and currently the AF schedule is pretty much the "normal" one, i.e. the one that they would fly without Covid19 groundings.

Well - with Macron's speech from last night, they have more details now and I expect the axe to come out soon...

But in any case they had announced that they'd only operate a skeleton schedule in May, well before the extension of the lockdown became public news.

Looks like they are starting to update the May schedule now. On Sunday they still showed CDG-YVR as running throughout May, and they are gone today. Interestingly, the flights seem to have just vanished rather than showing as cancelled on the status page of AF's website.

I am wondering when TATL flights will come back. I am not even sure borders with the US would re-open before August.

me too...:(

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/undefinedThere's a CDG-NYC flight three times a week right now

I had a CDG-JFK flight on Friday that I actually had to cancel! (I could have taken it since i'm a franco-us person, but it seemed less than advisable to a. fly / b. be in NYC.

Alas

CDG-YUL 3x a week as well still.

I confirm that the schedules are updated, at least start to be updated, for the first two weeks of May. I checked several of my routes, and the flights are gone. What is strange though is that on some routes that they fly now in April they have no flights in the first half of May, and then the normal schedule for the second half of May.

Which leads me to conclude that they are in the process of updating. Removing all flights from one destination and then adding some back, no plans yet for the second half of May, and so on.

We should have more clarity in the next couple of days.

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/undefinedbtw. I've been hiking near SFO his weekend and had a clear view on SFO runways for a while. There was literally jaw dropping https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/undefinedzerohttps://www.flyertalk.com/forum/undefined planes landing or taking off for the entire time I was around (couple of hours in the afternoon).

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/undefinedhttps://www.flyertalk.com/forum/undefinedAs mentioned, there are several flights between Europe and the US going on now. But they are not for tourists unless those tourists are returning to their home country.

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/undefinedEurope is beginning to open up (Austria, Denmark this week) and France will start on May 11th. As they get towards the end of May and the sky isn't falling, maybe they will fix a date in mid to late June to allow overseas tourists to fly into the EU. And you know the French, and most of Europe, will be fighting to have their August holiday!

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/undefinedThe US will have a similar plan. There is huge pressure to get business flowing again. And tourism is a huge part of business.

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/undefinedMy flight is mid-July so if you can push not only for August 🤣😂