Coronavirus vs Airline

I work for a major US airline in the operations centers.  With all of the craziness of the coronavirus spreading, travel has dropped off a lot.  Now with governmental travel bans from Europe, more flights are being cancelled. 

The news media fills every moment with stories of the stock market losing money, sporting events being delayed or cancelled, and what you should do to be safe.  In an effort to just share some information; here is what has been happening in my office.

Since the airline doesn’t operate without this office where I work, we have another facility in the event this office somehow becomes unusable.  For instance, last year we worked at the backup site while renovations were done in the primary office. 

Since the virus is mostly spread due to close contact, a major concern is if one of us get it, many of us will shortly thereafter.  The decision was made to split the workforce and have some work in each facility.  However, it was a few days before a plan was finalized.  In this case, day shift employees will work in the primary site and other shifts at the backup site.  Each office is to be fumigated after the shifts are finished.  We have sanitary wipes and hand sanitizer so I’m not too concerned. 

We have to cancel flights.  To date, many routes have been cancelled.  Most of them are international destinations.  Consequently, we have extra wide body planes sitting idle.  Some smaller planes that were slated for retirement later this year are being retired earlier.  This in itself isn’t difficult but then you must consider the flight crews. 

Flight attendants work every fleet type but most pilots cannot.  Therefore, if you retire smaller planes, some of the pilots will not work as much.  Pilots of bigger planes will also have less scheduled work but can get some back if flights are substituted with the bigger planes. I have limited knowledge of crew work rules but there are restrictions that affect what is done and how.

Since bookings are down, airlines need to cut costs.  Therefore, flights, domestic and international, are being cancelled here and there.  Some regularly scheduled heavy maintenance may be delayed.  Cabin modifications might be delayed.   

There is also an issue of the cancellations themselves.  Not every flight goes from point A to point B and back to A again.  In those cases, you would simply cancel the round trip and you are done.  What if you have to cancel that goes from A to B to C to D?  Somehow, you have to get the plane from A to D and that probably means flying the plane there without passengers. 

Probably the biggest issue is what to do with planes that will not fly.  If only one airline is grounding planes, there are still plenty of places to park them.  However, all airlines are cutting back.  Therefore, finding concrete to park them is at a premium. 

I hope this bit of information is enlightening.  Stay safe.