Qatar Airways chief executive Akbar Al Baker has been speaking to Reuters and said that it will keep the airline’s fleet of A380s grounded until mid to late 2021.
He also said that the airline may end up laying off around less than 20% of group staff and it wasn’t clear when the airline would return to profitability due to the pandemic.
Problems are clearly being thrown up by its agreements with manufacturers, with the airline’s boss saying it is in talks with both Airbus and Boeing to defer all pending aircraft deliveries. He also claims the airline won’t do any future business with manufacturers that make it hard to delay deliveries.
Qatar Airways is already on track to sell the five Boeing 737 Max aircraft that have already been delivered.
Joanna Partridge
Heavily indebted shopping centre owner Intu Properties is forecasting it will receive over a third (37%) less rental income this year than last from the retailers which rent space in its centres, my colleague Joanna Partridge writes.
The owner of Manchester’s Trafford Centre and Lakeside in Essex thinks it will collect £310m in rent in 2020, compared with £492m in 2020.
Intu also predicts it will end 2020 with just £24m cash, having started with £82m, although this is also dependent on its lenders waiving some covenants.
Despite this forecast, the company’s shares rose by 93% at one point on Tuesday morning, to almost 11p, although they are still trading 90% lower than they did a year ago
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