2020 In Commercial Aviation
For the past two years, I’ve written brief reviews of the year in commercial aviation, which has generally been an exciting thing, highlighting the greatest and most positive happenings in the industry. I am continuing to do the same this year, though the entire world has obviously been rocked by one thing this year: the COVID-19 pandemic. 2020 has undoubtedly been a weird, tragic, and difficult year for the entire world, and the aviation industry has of course been quite turbulent this year.
The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the world and the aviation industry for years if not decades to come, with its horrific impacts small and large. Airlines have for the most part shrunk in size and scope, with many routes cancelled, employees laid off, planes retired, etc. While most of the developments in the aviation industry have related to the COVID-19 pandemic, which I will cover, there have been a few positive ones which I also will highlight.
COVID-19 Dominates All
Back at the beginning of 2020, we all were learning about a strange new virus that emerged in Wuhan, which (relatively) quickly developed into a worldwide pandemic in March. At that point, the luckier ones of us had to quarantine at home to avoid exposure to the virus; the lockdowns have come and gone and come again, and pretty much remain the status quo. In this section, I’ll take a look at some of the impacts which COVID-19 has had on the aviation business, starting with reduced flight schedules.
Reduced Flight Schedules
Back in March, airlines began to significantly shrink their route networks, only maintaining the most necessary routes for the few who desperately needed to travel. Some airlines such as Austrian Airlines shut down temporarily; others, such as ExpressJet, shuttered for good.
In April, the aviation industry hit the rock bottom in terms of flight numbers, with less than 90,000 passengers flying in the United States on the lowest day. However, since April, airlines started bringing back many of their flights. In May, some airlines started to resume larger scale service, with (for example) United slightly scaling up their transatlantic services; at the end of March, they only (transatlantically) operated flights from Newark to London Heathrow and Frankfurt, though they added more flights from other hubs (such as Dulles) to other airports in Europe by then. Throughout the summer and fall, more and more non-US airlines such as Emirates continued to resume more flights to the United States, with US airlines continuously resuming more international and domestic flights.
Very quickly back in March, international travel restrictions were put in place by governments to prevent the spread of the virus, which resulted in many more international flights being cancelled than domestic flights. However, with many people being stranded halfway across the world from their homes, hundreds (if not thousands) of repatriation flights occurred, with a baseline of international flights being necessary back in the Spring, though each carrier only on average operated a handful. Many travel restrictions have been eased, though most countries still have their borders shut to American citizens with intercontinental leisure travel at a near standstill. However, more countries have opened their borders to American citizens, people people have began to visit family abroad, and some business travel has resumed, resulting in airlines reinstating significant portions of their international flights.
Currently, passenger boarding numbers in the United States are roughly at a third of the level that they were in 2019, though it obviously fluctuates every day. Some airlines which operated to the United States still haven’t resumed flights, such as Brussels Airlines, though the vast majority of international carriers which normally operated to the US are now flying to at least one or two of their normal gateways. Domestically, network carriers such as United and American are operating to the vast majority of their usual destinations, though generally with reduced frequencies and from fewer hubs. LCCs which mostly operate point to point services have also for the most part reduced their frequencies.
An Interesting New Trend Arises: Airlines Operating New (Often Point To Point) Flights To Leisure Destinations
In the aviation industry, airlines tend to segment travelers into different groups, with three main categories: business, leisure, and VFR (visiting friends and family), though all can be further segmented into sub-categories such as urgent VFR (which in normal times is when people need to visit a sick relative or a funeral, etc.) and non-urgent VFR (just your normal visit to your parents, grandparents, children, etc.). As a result of the pandemic and the excellent video communication systems that are now ubiquitous (such as Zoom), business travel has come to a near standstill. Non-urgent VFR traffic also came to a near standstill at the beginning of the pandemic, though urgent VFR increased, as many people needed to be repatriated, resulting in price gouging and the continuation of some international flights.
However, in the summer, leisure travel and non-urgent VFR travel started to slowly rebound, resulting in airlines starting to resume more domestic services. Interestingly, some airlines such as United started to actually introduce new routes this fall and winter, generally from their hubs or from larger non-hub airports to leisure destinations. For example, United recently began seasonal service from Milwaukee, Boston, LaGuardia, Cleveland, Columbus, Indianapolis, and Pittsburgh–all non-hub airports– to several vacation destinations in Florida, and has more recently added greater service from its hubs to airports in Florida, Central America, and the Caribbean.
Aircraft Retirements
The COVID-19 pandemic has also sadly resulted in many premature aircraft retirements. Unfortunately, this has resulted in more and more airlines retiring quad-jets, especially the 747 and A380, as they just aren’t as fuel efficient as twin-jets such as the 787 and A350. Also, prior to the pandemic, airlines thought that the 747 and A380 offered too much capacity, so you can only imagine how much excess capacity the 747 and A380 offer now. There have been many other significant aircraft retirements which I’ll mention below, but first I’ll cover the 747 and then the A380, as they are the most striking.
The Boeing 747 was on its way out before the pandemic, and there will only be a handful of operators going forward. The following airlines have entirely retired their 747 fleet as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
- British Airways: Once the largest Boeing 747 operator in the world, British Airways retired their last 747-400 this summer, marking the end of an era for them. BA was at one point almost synonymous with the 747, as they operated dozens of them. With reduced need for capacity and a relatively young rest of their wide-body fleet of 787s, 777s, and A350s, the choice was clear that the 747 would become the first to go.
- Qantas: Only a few years ago, nearly all of Qantas’ long-haul services were operated by the 747, though they have slowly been retiring them as the company has been taking delivery of 787s. Qantas was also special in that they were the only airline to ever operate the 747-400ER, a long-range but never popular version of the 747-400, though they also operated regular 747-400s. These retirements were especially sad for me because I flew on a Qantas 747 only a few years ago.
- KLM: Again once a backbone of their long-haul fleet, KLM retired the last of their 747-400s in April. It makes sense that KLM would retire their 747s first, as they were among the oldest models in their fleet. KLM was also unique in that they operated a sub-fleet of 747-400 Combi aircraft, which had a significant amount of the fuselage at the rear of the aircraft set aside exclusively for cargo, while the front half of the plane was used for passengers.
- Thai Airways: Only a bit over a month ago, Thai Airways retired and put up for sale their entire fleet of 747-400s, which was already quite a bit smaller than it was a few years back. Thai appears to be in deep financial trouble and will continue to shrink, though I doubt the Thai government would let them cease to exist out of national pride.
- Virgin Atlantic: Virgin retired their 747-400s at the beginning of the pandemic in May, marking the end of an era for an airline that used to exclusively operate 747s. They used their 747s exclusively out of Gatwick and had only a tiny premium cabin, though they previously used them out of Heathrow.
- Korean Air: While they still operate the 747-8, Korean Air retired their last 747-400s in October.
- Corsair: French leisure carrier Corsair retired its last 747-400 in April.
Meanwhile, there have been some advancements in Airbus A380 retirements; some have only retired a couple of A380s while others have retired their entire fleet:
- Air France: Air France made headlines back in May when they announced that they would retire their entire A380 fleet, making it the first airline to do so. The A380 is a relatively new aircraft, so this was an especially sad moment. However, their A380 cabins were quite dated with old IFE systems and angle flat seats in business class, meaning that from a paxex perspective, this is a good thing.
- Lufthansa: Lufthansa announced awhile back that they would retire six of their 14 Airbus A380s and in September further stated that they would in all likelihood not fly their remaining eight A380s ever again. This is of course quite sad, though I can’t blame Lufthansa management…
- Emirates: The worlds largest A380 operator retired their first of over 100 A380s back in October, though they have 5 more on order and plan on operating them for many more years to come.
- Thai: The flag carrier of Thailand recently put two of its six A380s up for sale; while I doubt any carriers will take them up on their offer, it seems unlikely that their A380 fleet will return in its entirety, though I find it quite possible (maybe even likely) that they’ll eventually put some back on their London, Tokyo, and possibly Frankfurt routes.
- Qatar Airways: Qatar has stated that they won’t fly their A380s for at least another two years, though given their relatively small role in the Qatar fleet, it’s quite possible that they’ll never fly again.
- Singapore Airlines: Singapore retired their first A380s in 2017, though they have taken delivery of more new ones since. They have announced that they will keep a fleet of 12 A380s (all of which are either new or will be retrofitted) out of 24 they originally ordered.
Besides the A380 and 747, there have been a few more high profile premature aircraft retirements due to the COVID-19 pandemic:
- Delta Air Lines’ 777s: Despite having a relatively new fleet of 777-200ERs and 777-200LRs, the most recent of which were barely over a decade old. Despite having only retrofitted its last Boeing 777 with their new (among the best in the world) Delta Suites at the beginning of this year, Delta decided to retire its entire fleet of 18 Boeing 777s. Their rationale for this decision must have been that they were going to have to downsize their long-haul fleet, and out of similarly sized aircraft, (in the larger wide-body fleet spectrum they also have A330s and A350s) they must have decided that they’d rather retire their smaller fleet of 777s than some of their newer and more numerous A330s.
- American Airlines 757s & 767s: American retired the last of their 757s and 767s at the start of the pandemic. While this development is quite good from the passenger’s perspective, as the aircraft interiors were outdated, this leaves American without any midsized aircraft to fly lower capacity and longer haul routes. While AA will be taking delivery of A321XLRs starting in 2023, the retirement makes Delta and United among the last significant operators of both the 757 and 767.
- American A330s: More recently, American decided to retire their entire fleet of 24 A330s, which they took over from US Airways during their merger. While their 9 A330-300s were alomost 20 years old, their -200s were still relatively new. However, for a large airline like American, much like Delta, it probably didn’t make economical sense to operate such a small fleet of A330s in a smaller market, when retiring would lead them to only have two long-haul aircraft types (the 777 and 787), leading them to have a very standardized fleet.
- The End Of The A340: The COVID-19 pandemic has also led to the end of the A340, one of the rare fuel inefficient and costly quad-jets still around. Iberia and Virgin Atlantic retired their entire fleets of A340-600s, while Lufthansa is highly likely never to fly their fleet of 10 A340-600s again. With South African Airways and their 20 A340s (both the -300 and -600) in a state of turmoil, potentially unlikely to ever fly again, that leaves Swiss and their subsidiary Edelweiss Air’s combined 9 A340-300s, along with Air Belgium (4 A340-300s) as the only major A340 operators. Besides that, there aren’t really any more major commercial A340 operators anymore, though there are tons of other airlines that I probably would not want to fly on which operate small fleets of A340s, such as Mahan Air (from Iran), Syrianair, Kam Air (also Iran), Iran Aseman Airlines, Azman Air (Nigeria), and Conviasa (Venezuela).
Furloughs, Bailouts, & More
As it became clearer and clearer that the COVID-19 pandemic would stay with us in the long-term, airlines began to warn of large-scale furloughs of staff. However, it is important to note that many airlines including Southwest and Delta were able to completely avoid furloughs due to voluntary severance packages offered to and accepted by many employees. In addition, the US government gave airlines a multi-billion dollar bailout in payroll support as part of the CARES Act back in March, which lasted until the end of December, when some airlines decided to begin layoffs.
Much more recently, as part of the latest COVID relief bill (apologies if any of this information is outdated by the time of publishing), Congress passed 15 billion dollars in payroll support to airlines (which in all honesty is probably way too much, as it works out to be nearly $500,000 per furloughed employee in the period from now until April) with conditions similar to those from the original CARES Act, which led airlines to take back all of their furloughed employees As of now, that bill is stalled. However, I still feel very happy for all of the airline employees who will no longer be furloughed..
Airline Bankrupcies
I wrote an article on which airlines have gone out of business during the COVID-19 pandemic a couple months ago, so it would be a waste of time to go through it all again. Just to quickly review though, the list of airlines that have gone out of business during (and largely as a result of) the coronavirus includes Flybe, Trans States Airlines, Compass Airlines, ExpressJet, Miami Air International, NokScoot, TAME, and Cathay Dragon. However, South African Airways and Alitalia are unlikely to emerge from the pandemic in their current forms.
New Airports & Airport Terminals
While the COVID-19 pandemic has had immense effects on the commercial aviation industry in 2020, there still have been a few good things that have come out of 2020 in aviation. For starters, there were quite a few airports and airport terminals which have opened during 2020, and in some cases, progress has even been sped up due to reduced traffic.
- Berlin Brandenburg Airport: What was supposed to open in 2010 has finally opened a decade later: Berlin Brandenburg Airport. While it was originally supposed to open a decade ago and become the world-class hub of AirBerlin, delay after delay has caused the airport to stay closed until November of 2020, in a year where another airport hardly seems necessary. Brandenburg Airport is located adjacent to Schönefeld Airport, which has since been rebranded as Berlin Brandenburg Airport Terminal 5 and will become the home of low cost carriers such as Ryanair. The opening of Brandenburg Airport led to the closure of previous largest Berlin airport, Tegel Airport, located in the former West Berlin. With the demise of AirBerlin, EasyJet will become the largest airport out of BER in the long-term, as Lufthansa doesn’t plan to operate a hub out of Berlin, though their subsidiary Eurowings will operate a focus city out of Brandenburg. Unfortunately, Berlin has never been able to sustain a stable transatlantic market, meaning that United’s flight to Newark will become Brandenburg’s sole flight to the United States, though a couple other airlines do operate long-haul flights to Berlin, such as Scoot (Singapore), Qatar Airways, and Hainan Airlines (Beijing), and Delta may eventually resume their JFK flight.
- LaGuardia New Terminal B: In June, the new Terminal B at LaGuardia Airport opened, replacing the old terminal Terminal B. This is part of the massive renovation and reconstruction of nearly all of LaGuardia, which was previously (and in many places still is) quite dated. The new Terminal B is attached by bridges to two island concourses, one of which opened in 2018 and the other of which partially opened this year though still is under construction and will open in 2021. The headhouse is much more open than the old concourses and includes new check-in, security, and baggage collection facilities. Terminal B is used mostly by American Airlines, though Untied, Southwest, and Air Canada all additionally have their operations there.
- New Salt Lake City Airport Terminal: Also exciting in the world of aviation was the recent opening of the new Salt Lake City Airport terminal, which replaces all of the old concourses at the airport. It consists of two concourses: Concourse A, attached to the main terminal, and Concourse B, which is a midfield concourse. The new airport terminal looks gorgeous and modern, and should be great for Delta flyers who connect through SLC, as Delta is by far the largest carrier at the airport.
New Aircraft Cabins & Aircraft Deliveries
In my last two yearly reviews of aviation, I’ve highlighted some of the improvements in passenger experience (paxex) that airlines have introduced throughout the year in the form of new and sometimes revolutionary onboard cabins. Unfortunately, airlines have generally put on hold aircraft interior improvements due to COVID-19, as airlines are trying to save as much as they can. While there were definitely many more aircraft and ergo cabins that went out of service in 2020, a few airlines did introduce exciting new cabins this year, though they have mostly flown under the radar.
- Aeroflot A350 New Cabins: Aeroflot has long lagged behind peer airlines in terms of cabins, especially in business class, which is a shame, as they are known to have a great soft product onboard. However, with the delivery of their first A350s (which occurred in February) they introduced both a new livery and new cabins across the board. This included an amazing new staggered business class seat (Aeroflot’s old business class seats didn’t even have all aisle access) with closing doors, making them one of the few airlines to have doors in business class. Had COVID not hit, they surely would have had one of the world’s best business classes onboard their A350s. Aeroflot was actually the first airline to use this new seat, the Collins Horizon, which is exciting; it’ll be interesting to see if other airlines use it. They also introduced a new premium economy class using the Collins MiQ seat (also used on airlines such as United and American) and a new more modern economy class seat.
- Ethiopian Airlines New Business Class Seats: Ethiopian Airlines introduced not one but two new long-haul business class this year, one onboard their A350-900 and the other onboard their 787-9. Both aircraft are not new to their fleet, though they both previously used the Collins Diamond seat in business which are fully flat seats in a 2-2-2 configuration. On the 787-9, their new business class uses the Collins Super Diamond model, a popular reverse herringbone seat in a 1-2-1 configuration (also used by American on their 777s and 787-9s, among many other carriers, including fellow African carriers Egyptair and Royal Air Maroc), which will presumably be installed on the rest of their 787 deliveries. Onboard their A350, they used the Safran Optima seat, which is a staggered seat in a 1-2-1 configuration and was popularized by United, which they use in Polaris, although Air France also uses it onboard their A350-900s. These are two very exciting developments for the largest airline of Africa; they seem to have a very authentic soft product, so with the two new fantastic seats, they could end up having a very competitive business class product, as they generally haven’t had cutting edge seats in business class in the past.
- Kuwait Airways & Uganda Airlines A330-800s: Kuwait Airways was the launch customer of the A330-800neo, the smaller version of the A330neo, which unfortunately hasn’t gotten very many orders yet (the -900 was a success though). However, the first two customers of the aircraft–Kuwait Airways (which ordered eight) and Uganda Airlines (which ordered two)–took delivery of the aircraft this year, with Air Greenland being the third customer of the aircraft, though they won’t receive theirs for a couple more years. This brings the grand total of A330-800s ordered to a total of eleven. Kuwait Airways introduced a new business class product–also the Collins Super Diamond–onboard the A330-800, which is a big improvement over their previous business class models, which didn’t have all aisle access (777) or were angle flat (A330). Uganda Airlines, which before they took delivery of the A330-800 only operated CRJ-900s (it’s a pretty big jump from a regional jet to a wide-body, so I’m surprised they didn’t order 737s or A320s as a bridge), introduced fantastic new onboard cabins, with the Stelia Solstys III in business class (a staggered seat in a 1-2-1 configuration, also found on Garuda Indonesia and Air Senegal, similar to Turkish Airlines’ & Singapore’s 787s) and new economy class and premium economy products, both of which have personal IFE.
- Starlux Airlines: I have to say, Starlux Airlines has got to be the unluckiest airline in the world, as they commenced services just before the COVID-19 pandemic hit. They are Taiwan’s third premium carrier (after EVA Air and China Airlines; I can’t say I thought there’s much of a market for them) and introduced services at the beginning of the year onboard A321neos on short-medium haul routes within Asia to destinations such as Penang and Macau. While they aren’t operating a large schedule yet, they have big plans for expansion on medium and long-haul routes to North America and possibly Europe with 18 A350s and 8 A330neos on order. Their A321neos are unique in that they have flatbed seats in business class, something which not very many airlines have. They opted to use the Collins Diamond seat in business for their A321neos, which is now considered below standard for long-haul flights though is gaining traction with narrow-bodies.
More 777X Delays, & The 737 MAX Slowly Comes Back
The 777X, the latest variant of the Boeing 777, has once again been delayed, with entry into commercial service having been postponed until 2022 after multiple previous delays. The 777X will become the largest aircraft with two engines ever, and while the number of aircraft orders has topped 300, it hasn’t received orders from very many airlines (though Emirates and Qatar ordered 115 and 60, respectively), and airlines such as Cathay Pacific have started to defer orders.
This is especially unfortunate as multiple airlines, such as Lufthansa (with their first ever business class seat with all aisle access), Cathay Pacific, British Airways, and Emirates were going to introduce new cabins onboard the aircraft, which will now be even more delayed.
Also in the news with Boeing, the 737 MAX was cleared to fly again by the FAA and European regulators, after a year and a half period where the aircraft was grounded due to faulty onboard systems that led to the tragic Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines crashes in 2018 and 2019, respectively. Regulators believe that sufficient changes have been made to make the aircraft safe again, though a large portion of the populace is (rightfully) highly critical after the severe mistakes from Boeing and regulators the first time around.
The MAX has already re-entered service with a couple of airlines already, which started with Brazil’s Gol, while US carriers such as United and American will resume service in Q1 of 2021. Airlines will of course cease to advertise the 737 MAX, with many alerting customers that they will be flying on the plane and allowing them to change flights, though many have started to refer to the plane as the 737-8 (or 737-9, 737-7, or 737-10, depending on the model) instead of the 737 MAX 8 (etc.) for obvious reasons.
Conclusion
2020 has surely been one of the most tragic and eventful years in modern history and has been a very eventful one for airlines, to say the least. There has been a lot of tragedy this year, mostly as a result of the the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced airlines to reduce their capacity significantly, furlough many of their workers, and in some cases, for airlines to shut down permanently. This year has also been the final blow for iconic aircraft such as the 747 and A340, while the A380 will continue to be retired by many airlines, despite being barely over a decade old.
However, there has been some progres in aviation during 2020 in the form of new airports and cabins (though many less than in 2018 and 2019) which I tried to highlight, and there have been some more developments with Boeing, positive for the 737 MAX and negative for the 777X. Nevertheless, let us all hope that 2021 will be a better year, as a whole and in the aviation industry, with hopefully the end (whatever that may mean) of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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