Waterhorse

Indeed, it's nowhere near as bad as bit of flu. The Spanish Flu of 1918/19 killed 228,000 in the UK alone, it had a mortality rate of between 10 and 20%.

warakorn

For airlines the Coronavirus will be even worse than the 2008 financial crisis.

travelinmanS

Will be worse than 9/11 as well since this is truly global.

BAeuro

But how will BA respond? Shrink their network, delay deliveries, reduce capacity, or just keep calm and carry on?

Tinseltown

Also: some company policies do not just affect corporate travel. They affect private travel, too. I wouldn't be allowed to travel (for work or holidays) to China. Any travel to other affected areas requires sign-off from the European CEO (and no one's going to ask him to do that, which means no one really will).

A friend was due to travel to Italy for holiday, and she was allowed to do so by her company, but would have had to self-quarantine herself for 2 weeks after. That didn't work for her as she had meetings in her diary, so she's not flying there now.

But also... this is not a flu.

MFCC

BA offer unpaid leave to MF crew every single month without fail. It’s only the temporary part time that’s new.

fransknorge

This is not correct. The estimated case fatality rate is 2-3%, source WHO https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/...547680_eng.pdf

babats

Which part of 'unpaid' didn't you understand?

13901

It depends.

If this thing dies down pretty quickly come the summer - or if countries such as Korea, China, Japan & Italy get it controlled fairly easily - then I believe that the worst could be contained. If this affects the summer season in the same way as it's doing the current season then it will be bad.

Having said that, the '08 crisis lasted for long because it spread into the 'real' economy (like Obama used to say, from Wall St. to Main St.). Banks, insurance companies, investment funds were going belly up: this isn't caused by them.

How will it affect airlines? If it lasts for long it will affect all airlines badly. BA, however, is in a decent enough position: for once, its paltry Asian network (that I always used to throw rotten veggies at) is a good insurance policy, as long as the US don't turn into a Wuhan with pick-up trucks and guns. Then there's the cost control they exerted over the years. From memory the non-fuel CASK at BA are lower than at other EU legacies', especially those fixed costs that stay the same as flying goes up or down. Nick Swift, a good CFO if ever there was one, always remarked in his end of quarter sessions that we were shaping BA up to be able to dip in the red for less time than the competitors and bounce back from an economic shock quicker than the competitors.

But again, it all depends on how it progresses. I don't know how well the NHS could cope if they were to have the same number of patients as they're having in Italy.

Agent69

So if it comes in at less than 228,000 deaths we have had a bit of a result?

I guess the response from BA is an inevitable consequence of the current situation. Just waiting for UNITE / BALPA to complain bitterly about IAG profits last year and demand that those profits are used to pay BA employees their full salary to sit at home where necessary until the epedemic is over.

shefgab

I think he meant, why take unpaid leave (which is unpaid....), rather than just staying as a full time employee (on full salary) and watch as every flight is either cancelled or empty (so basically doing nothing on full pay (which of course won't/can't happen as there'll be no flight pay)).

jonas123

i think the point was that because BA are cancelling lots of flights, you can choose not to take unpaid leave yet you would have to fly less than before anyway

let_BAegones_be

Read my comment again. Slowly. Take in every word one by one.

everGLAdes

Can this be enforced? Or is it voluntary?

worldtrav

It appears some airlines are planning on a longer impact than next month. United's voluntary leaves are 3 months or 6 months, that takes us in to September.