WestJet Airlines Ltd. says it will lay off 1,700 pilots as the company continues to struggle with fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic. The Air Line Pilots Union says 700 employees received layoff notices effective May 1, with 1,000 more kicking in on June 1, depending on seniority.
One week ago, the Calgary-based company announced it would bring back nearly 6,400 laid-off workers to its payroll using Ottawa’s emergency wage subsidy program.
The earlier layoffs did not affect pilots, who had signed a memorandum of understanding to stay on board through April. WestJet says the 1,700 laid-off pilots will be placed on inactive status and be able to access the federal wage subsidy.
“Issuing layoffs, in response to this crisis, has always been a last resort for WestJet; however, the impact of COVID-19 on the aviation industry is colossal, and WestJet is making difficult but necessary decisions to right-size our airline to weather the crisis,” a WestJet spokesperson wrote in an email.
The furloughs will apply at the carrier’s mainline service as well as WestJet Encore and its budget subsidiary Swoop.
The Air Line Pilots Association said in an email Thursday that “discussions are ongoing to mitigate the June layoffs.”
Pilots had already made concessions to forgo about 50 percent of total compensation through April, said Capt. Dave Colquhoun, who chairs the union’s WestJet pilots group.
Over the past few weeks, he has been taking part in talks with Ottawa around a possible aid package for airlines.
“We anticipate that the government’s probably going to look at options where they buy equity positions in companies,” he added, but offered as a model the US approach revolving around US$61 billion in federal grants and loans.
At least a dozen countries have thrown their carriers a lifeline in the form of loans, tax relief or direct financial support.
Bombardier lends a hand producing ventilators
Bombardier Inc. is helping to produce 18,000 ventilators for the Ontario government at its temporarily shuttered plant in Thunder Bay, Ont. The plane-and-train maker says it will carry out sanding, painting and assembly work on the equipment for Brampton based O-Two Medical Technologies, which manufactures respiratory care products.
O-Two found its supply chain disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic and started hunting for help to churn out portable ventilators amid a looming shortage in Canada.
The plant expects to start work on April 27, drawing on between 40 and 50 employees – most of whom had been temporarily laid off – over three to four months.
Bombardier which has furloughed 70 percent of its Canadian workforce due to the pandemic, had suspended operations at the plant as non-essential work ground to a halt across the country.
Employment at the factory, which counted 1,100 workers last summer, now hovers at around 420 after two of its major contracts – for Toronto Transit Commission streetcars and Metrolinx GO Transit rail cars – wound down over the last few months.
The fresh work will include assembling display screens and installing battery boxes along with inspecting and shipping to O-Two, which will carry out final assembly and testing.
Borders
Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland says Canada is talking with the United States about the agreement keeping the border closed to non-essential crossings. Freeland says Canada’s position is that the agreement should be extended.
She says regardless of what Donald Trump says about wanting to re-open the border, decisions about opening Canada’s side will be made by Canadians only.
Freeland says there are also discussions between premiers about interprovincial travel restrictions.
Manitoba
The Manitoba government is restricting non-essential travel to the province’s north and to remote communities to help reduce the spread of COVID-19.
British Columbia
The Vancouver Aquarium says it could be forced into bankruptcy and permanent closure because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The aquarium has been closed since March 17 but faces monthly costs in excess of $1 million for animal care and habitat maintenance. Ocean Wise Conservation Association, which operates the aquarium, says bankruptcy is likely by early summer if funding is not found.
The not-for-profit aquarium currently houses more than 70,000 animals. It has laid off 60 percent of its staff while it says the remainder are working reduced hours.
Aviation
The US is offering airlines a $25 billion aid package, but damage to the sector will be extensive and long-lasting. Industry analysts say it could be five years before the industry fully recovers.
• United Airlines’ flight schedule will be cut to 10% in May and it expects more of the same in June. In a letter to employees, CEO Oscar Munoz wrote that travel demand is “essentially zero and shows no sign of improving in the near-term.” During the first two weeks of April, less than 200,000 people booked flights on United, down from about 6 million during the same period last year. “We expect to fly fewer people during the entire month of May than we did on a single day in May 2019,” Munoz said. Job cuts at the airline, though prohibited through September under strings tied to the aid package, are likely in the fall.
• At American Airlines 32,000 workers have volunteered for early retirement or leave at reduced pay. American started the year with about 133,000 employees.
• Passenger traffic at Cathay Pacific Group fell 90% in March from a year earlier. The company said its schedule through may will be a “bare skeleton,” at only 3% capacity.
Accommodation
Hotel group Accor says it will take in people with the COVID-19 who show no symptoms but risk contaminating others. The public hospital system and local governments, including the Paris City Hall, worked on the initiative. The spread of the coronavirus in France has taken a toll on tourism, emptying hotels. The nation’s strict confinement measures last until May 11.
Amsterdam, in the midst of an unprecedented tourism slump caused by restrictions aimed at slowing the spread of the coronavirus, announced Thursday that it is planning to ban people from renting out homes to visitors in three historic downtown neighbourhoods.
The move, which is set to come into force July 1, is the Dutch capital’s latest attempt to rein in people renting their homes out on platforms like Airbnb amid complaints from residents that tourists are spoiling their quality of life. A system coming into force July 1 in Amsterdam that will mean anybody renting out their home in the city will have to have a permit. City Hall will not be issuing permits for the three neighbourhoods covered by the ban.
In a statement Airbnb said 95% of its listings in Amsterdam are outside the areas covered by the ban, and added that the company already has introduced tools to tackle noise and nuisance.
Captain Tom
A 99-year-old World War II veteran has completed his quest to walk 100 laps of his garden in eastern England and raised almost £13 ($23.8) million for Britain’s National Health Service. Tom Moore’s humble mission to support health care workers during the coronavirus pandemic became a national rallying point and an Army Honour guard were on hand for his final lap. Tens of thousands of Britons pledged donations as Moore pursued a goal of finishing the laps before his 100th birthday on April 30.
Maldives
The Maldives government has placed the archipelago state’s capital island, Male, and two nearby islands under a two-day lockdown after authorities found signs of community spread of the new coronavirus. Officials said three people tested positive for COVID-19 in Male on Wednesday and Thursday and it was not clear how the virus entered the community.
The Indian Ocean country is known for its luxury tourist resort islands. Before this week, the Maldives had only found positive cases of COVID-19 at the resorts. There have been 23 confirmed cases overall, including 15 foreigners. Some resorts and hotels have been converted into quarantine centres. The capital island is tiny, with more than 100,000 people packed into 1 square mile (2.5 square kilometres).
If you act like a child…
Ten tourists in India were caught breaking the nationwide lockdown and were given a rather curious punishment. The tourists are from Israel, Mexico, Australia and Austria were caught in the town of Rishikesh, made famous by the Beatles in the late 1960s.
According to local police officer Vinod Sharma, they were ordered to write “I did not follow the rules of lockdown so I am so sorry” 500 times.
According to local media, other unique punishments meted out to residents have included being forced to do army drill style squats by the roadside.
During the lockdown which has been extended to May 03, the country’s 1.2 billion population are only allowed out to buy essential supplies. tourists must now be accompanied by helpers designated by their hotel and failure to do so could result in fines for the hotels. Local police say more than 700 tourists have violated the lockdown.
What’s in a name?
In an appearance on “Fox & Friends,” this week, counselor to the President, Kellyanne Conway, was asked about Trump’s decision Tuesday to revoke US funding for the World Health Organization. Here’s what she said,
“The President took decisive and immediate action at the end of January to shut down flights to China. That was criticized by the WHO. It was criticized by other people as xenophobic and racist and travel bans don’t work. Well, this one sure did … But there’s another reason, some of the scientists and doctors say that there could be other strains later on. This could come back in the fall in a limited way. This is Covid-19, not Covid-1, folks. You would think that people charged with the World Health Organization facts and figures would be on top of that. This is just a pause right now. So, there is an investigation, examination to what happened. But people should know the facts.”
Conway suggests WHO had 18 earlier chances to get it right. Right? Wrong!
As WHO explained back in its February 11 Situation Report, “Following WHO best practices for naming of new human infectious diseases, which were developed in consultation and collaboration with the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), WHO has named the disease Covid-19, short for ‘coronavirus disease 2019.'”
And not Kellyanne, because it’s the 19th of 18 pervious coronavirus diseases – in fact this is called ‘novel’ coronavirus – novel indicating “new or original”.