Tui strikes undisclosed compensation deal for Boeing 737 Max grounding

Posted on 8 June, 2020 by Spacejunkie2

How to know if YOUR flight is a Boeing 737 Max 8 - World News ...
Tuis Boeing 737 Max 80.

An undisclosed compensation deal has been struck between Tui and Boeing to offset the cost of the grounding of the 737 Max.

A “comprehensive package of measures” has been agreed between Europe’s largest travel group and the US manufacturer.

More: Boeing 737 Max grounding forces Tui to find alternative aircraft for 2020

Compensation will be paid over the next two years while new deliveries of the aircraft are being postponed.

The deal strengthens the liquidity of the Tui Group as the travel industry suffers the impact of Covid-19.

A worldwide flight ban was imposed on the 737 Max in March 2019 following two fatal crashes, which also had an impact on the operations and fleet renewal plans of Tui’s airlines.

Tui had 15 737 Max aircraft at the time, with eight more scheduled for delivery in 2019.

With its five airlines in Germany, the UK, Belgium, the Netherlands and Sweden Tui is one of Boeing’s largest European customers for the 737 family.

Tui said: “While the details of the agreement are confidential, it provides compensation which covers a significant portion of the financial impact, as well as credits for future aircraft orders.

“The compensation will be realised over the next two years.

“In addition, both parties have agreed to a revised delivery schedule for the 61 737 Max aircraft on order, meaning that Tui will get fewer 737 Max deliveries from Boeing than previously planned in the next several years.

“The associated payment schedules have been adapted accordingly. As a result of this less than half of the originally planned 737 Max aircraft will be delivered to Tui in the next two years.

“On average, compared with the original scheduling, the 737 Max deliveries will be delayed by approximately two years.

“This will significantly reduce Tui’s capital and financing requirements for aircraft in the coming years and supports Tui’s plan to reduce the size of the fleet of its five European airlines in the wake of the corona crisis.

“It was agreed not to disclose the financial details of the agreement.”

Chief executive Fritz Joussen said: “We have reached a fair agreement that strengthens our long-standing relationship with Boeing.

“The agreement provides Tui with compensation for a large part of costs that were incurred due to the grounding of the 737 Max.

“The new delivery schedule gives us considerable flexibility because we will have fewer new aircraft delivered in the next years.

“This enables Tui to rapidly adapt its fleet growth to the currently challenging market environment. And it supports our plan to downsize the aircraft fleet and reduce the capital requirements for aircraft investments in the group.”

August cruise resumption played down by Carnival Corporation chief

Posted on 8 June, 2020 by Spacejunkie2

How Carnival Corporation is bringing people together

Hopes of an August 1 restart of Carnival Cruise Line sailings have been played down by the boss of the company’s parent company.

Carnival Corporation president and chief executive Arnold Donald described the fallout from Covid-19 as “devastating”.

Ships would only sail when “it will be no greater risk, or even lower risk, than other forms of social gathering”.

Carnival Cruise Line announced a month ago plans to resume services from three US ports from the beginning of August at a time when other operations were being cancelled.

But Donald told The Telegraph that the August 1 date should not be taken as concrete as the situation is “constantly evolving and changing”.

He said: “Those we didn’t cancel [was] in hope that we would be able to cruise at that time and the ships would be positioned properly to honour the cruise, so on and so forth.

“We’re not trying to predict when we’ll open up but we’re hopeful that we’ll be able to. But it’s obviously dependent on what’s in the best interest of public health, not about the cruise but about broad social gathering… if people are in restaurants, hotels, airport terminals and subway stations, if a social gathering is happening, then it’s a condition for the cruise.

“But if we’re still in a state of highly constrained social gathering then it’s not the right situation. So we’ll see where society is at that point.

“We’re aware that people are anxious to get their economies going again, people are definitely anxious to cruise.

“We continue to get bookings and so on. So we’re anxious to go, too. But we only want to do it when the time is right so I think that there is a broader societal metric that we have to look at – we can’t just look wholly at cruise.”

His comments follow UK brand P&O Cruises further cancelling sailings until mid-October.

Donald added: “Our highest responsibility and our top priorities are, and they remain, compliance, environmental protection and the health and safety and wellbeing of our guests, our crew and the people and the places we go,” he said.

“So I want people to know that we will do everything to make certain that they are not taking a far greater risk by being on a cruise than other forms of social gathering – we don’t want that, we’re not going to let that happen. It will be no greater risk or even lower risk than other forms of social gathering.”

Looking forward, he said: “I don’t think there will be any issue filling the ships initially because the reality is that there’s not going to be that many ships and that many itineraries, [and] there will be plenty of people wanting to cruise.

“Over time, we’re going to eventually need to get back to where we were which was attracting people who haven’t cruised before.

“That job has been made, short-term, more difficult because people who haven’t cruised are hearing lots of stories and read stuff in the news, and now in their mind, they have another reason not to cruise.

“We’re going to have to, over time, chip away at whatever myth they happen to hold about a cruise, and help them see that that’s not the case.”

A crucial part of the cruise restart: Lines and ports must agree on health protocols

Posted on 6 June, 2020 by Spacejunkie2

Carnival Cruise Line ships in Cozumel, Mexico. As it works towards a restart, the cruise industry must work with port authorities and governments to agree on health protocols.

As cruising looks to resume operations after the coronavirus-induced industry halt, it faces challenges unique to an industry in which the majority of its ships touch multiple nations on each itinerary.

CLIA global chair Adam Goldstein said in a conversation with Travel Weekly editors that the association is aware that it will be paramount for travel advisors to have clarity about when cruising can resume and what protocols will accompany that resumption.

Among the challenges the cruise industry faces is that each country will have its own set of rules and regulations to comply with. But Goldstein said this is not new for cruising, and he said CLIA is supporting its member cruise lines to put together protocols that should “meet the test of any international national health authority.”

“There’s never been a perfect harmony across the 1,000 destinations that cruise ships visit, and somehow we managed to work out a fairly seamless vacation environment,” Goldstein said. “This presents new challenges across every dimension. And while our aspiration is for the most harmonized global approach possible, it’s a complex world. Regions are quite different from one another. It’s possible we won’t end up with a perfectly harmonized Covid-19 world to deal with. But I don’t think there’s anybody more experienced, clever or determined to succeed in a global environment than the cruise industry, and that’s been well demonstrated over a half-century.”

CLIA CEO Kelly Craighead said that regulatory agencies worldwide have approached the cruise industry in different ways.

“Some of the challenges in the U.S. are different from the challenges we’re having [elsewhere],” she said. “In Europe in particular, the industry is welcome to participate in dialogue about thoughtful resumption protocols. In the U.S., with the CDC, we’re having some challenges with having that kind of engagement and dialogue with them.”

Craighead added that in Europe, “there is an interest from governments to reopen tourism, and cruising is considered an important part of that.”

Given those complexities, Goldstein said it is premature to say where CLIA members might first relaunch.

“We can’t comment for the authorities,” he said. “They’re dealing with a billion different things. Travel and tourism is one piece, and cruise is a very small piece of that piece.”

He also said that it is likely there will be the sequencing of cruise resumption in different regions.

“I just can’t say which will go first, second, third,” he said. “We also expect [cruises may be shorter] toward the beginning, they could go to fewer ports at the beginning. It will take time, and there will be an evolution back towards what we were doing pre-pause.”

Above all, right now, Goldstein said it is important for the industry to be ready to engage with governments around the world at any time.

“What concerns us is: would we miss opportunities to engage at the time when governments are prepared to engage with us?” he said. “So the message to the member lines is, ‘let’s be as ready as we can be as an association.’ It’s an everyday challenge we work through.”