Joshua Weinstein always wanted to be an airline pilot, but the industry was in crisis when he started college in 2002, so he became a middle school teacher instead.
He loved that job, but after a decade of flying in his free time at a cost of tens of thousands of dollars, Weinstein began hearing more about a looming pilot shortage and left the classroom in 2018 to pursue his dream. It worked: In January, he started training to fly for ExpressJet, which operates regional flights for United Airlines. But the coronavirus pandemic, which devastated the airline business, could thin the ranks of pilots by the thousands and has already put the nascent careers of people like Weinstein on hold.
“The worst part right now is that the only thing we know is that nobody knows anything,” he said. “There’s uncertainty. We just don’t know what happens next.”
For years, flight schools, airlines and experts encouraged people like Weinstein to become pilots. They promised young recruits a job that was lucrative and secure because thousands of pilots in their late 50s and early 60s would retire in the coming years and demand for travel would continue growing. The profession is still stacked with older aviators, but airlines are expected to make deep cuts in the coming months, and the pilots most at risk are those who are just starting out.
While air travel has recovered somewhat, it is still only about one-fourth of what it was last year, according to airport security data. Most experts say the recovery will be slow and uneven because of a patchwork of travel bans and the unpredictable nature of the pandemic. The recent surge in coronavirus infections has already forced some governors to delay reopening their state economies and to shut down bars and other businesses. If cases continue to increase, as some public health experts fear, air travel could become a lot less appealing.
To prepare for that uncertain future, the largest airlines in the US are stockpiling billions of dollars in cash. If ticket sales do not recover soon, American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Southwest Airlines and United have said they could resort to job cuts as soon as Oct. 1, the first day when airlines are free to eliminate jobs and reduce hours under a stimulus law that Congress approved in March.
Airlines could lay off, furlough or reduce the hours of tens of thousands of pilots, cuts that would disproportionately fall on those who have less union seniority and training. Major airlines have already stopped hiring pilots after posting hundreds of openings in the first quarter of the year, according to Future & Active Pilot Advisors, a consulting firm.
Several companies are offering buyout packages to avoid deeper cuts later. Southwest has acknowledged in discussions with its pilots union that the airline is likely overstaffed by more than 1,000 pilots. The company is offering several years of partial pay and benefits to those who agree to leave the company temporarily or permanently. Delta warned last week that it could furlough nearly 2,600 pilots and is offering early-retirement packages.
Some pilots said the turmoil was nerve-racking, but those who have been in the profession for a while have come to expect it.
“You kind of know going in that aviation has high highs and low lows,” said Lisa Archibald, 41, a Delta pilot and volunteer with the airline’s pilot union, the Delta Master Executive Council. “You do it because you love what you do.”
Like Weinstein, Archibald arrived at the job by way of a detour. After graduating from Purdue University’s School of Aviation and Transportation Technology, she was hired to fly at American Eagle, which American Airlines owns. But the job started days before the 2001 terrorist attacks, and she was furloughed after just a few weeks.
About a year later, Archibald found a job piloting corporate jets, which she did for 15 years. She joined Delta in May 2017.
Unsurprisingly, pilots are passionate about the profession. That is why they spend years in grueling training programs, trying to rack up the minimum flight hours and credentials needed to become airline pilots, at a cost of up to $100,000, not including the price of a college degree.
Weinstein, 36, estimates that he easily spent between $50,000 and $70,000 on flight training, offset by what he earned working at the flight school and teaching middle school in New Jersey over a decade. At ExpressJet, first-year pilots earn a minimum $36,000 a year.
Whatever the outcome, Weinstein said, all that effort has been worth it.
“I have something to show for it because I did make it to the airlines and I did get hired and I did achieve that dream,” he said. “And so part of me says not to regret a single moment of it, because I put my mind to something and I did it.”
The New York Times Company
LONDON — Anglo-Dutch energy giant Royal Dutch Shell will take a vast second-quarter charge of up to $22 billion due to coronavirus and collapsing oil prices, it announced Tuesday.
The company said in a statement that it would face a charge of between $15 billion and $22 billion in the second quarter, after reviewing chronic fallout from the deadly COVID-19 outbreak that crashed global demand for energy.
"In the second quarter of 2020, Shell has revised its mid and long-term price and refining margin outlook reflecting the expected effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and related macroeconomic as well as energy market demand and supply fundamentals," the London-listed firm said.
"This has resulted in the review of a significant portion of Shell's upstream, integrated gas and refining assets."
The energy major added that the move also reflected a planned reshaping of refining activities as it seeks to move towards becoming carbon neutral by 2050.
Shell's announcement comes after rival BP revealed earlier this month that it was taking a hit of between $13 billion and $17.5 billion in the same period as a result of "sustained" coronavirus fallout that ravaged the world's appetite for oil.
Agence France-Presse
Policymakers and government leaders have taken a range of approaches to deal with the economic fallout from the coronavirus. Here is a list of how some of the world's biggest economies and economic blocs have reacted.
UNITED STATES
President Donald Trump on Wednesday instructed the US Treasury Department to defer tax payments without interest or penalties for certain individuals and businesses negatively impacted, saying it would provide more than $200 billion of additional liquidity to the economy.
Trump also said he was ordering the Small Business Administration to provide capital and liquidity to firms affected by the coronavirus by providing low-interest loans to small businesses in affected states and territories, effective immediately. And he suspended all travel from Europe, with a few exceptions, to the United States for 30 days starting on Friday.
Earlier, Trump signed a $8.3 billion emergency spending bill to combat the spread of the virus and develop vaccines for the highly contagious disease.
The US Federal Reserve has cut interest rates by half a percentage point in its first emergency rate move since the height of the 2008 financial crisis. Investors expect more cuts in the weeks ahead.
CHINA
China said it had earmarked 110.5 billion yuan ($15.9 billion) to fight the epidemic.
Beijing has ramped up funding support for virus-hit regions and the country's central bank has cut several of its key rates, including the benchmark lending rate, and has urged banks to give cheap loans and payment relief to exposed companies.
China will modify the environmental supervision of companies to help the resumption of production disrupted by the coronavirus epidemic, giving firms more time to rectify environmental problems.
JAPAN
Japan unveiled a second package of measures worth about $4 billion in spending to cope with the fallout of the coronavirus outbreak, focusing on support to small and mid-sized firms, as concerns mount about risks to the fragile economy.
Separately, Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda has pledged to pump more liquidity into markets and step up asset buying.
Japan's central bank may also take steps to ensure companies hit by the coronavirus outbreak do not face a financial squeeze before the end of the current fiscal year in March, according to sources familiar with the central bank's thinking.
EUROPEAN CENTRAL BANK
The ECB, the central bank of the euro zone, has so far avoided cutting interest rates. Policymakers did hold an unscheduled meeting on March 3 but it was to discuss operational responses to coronavirus, such as whether to hold events and staff shortages, rather than any policy response, sources close to the matter said.
The ECB has asked euro zone banks to review their business continuity plans and the actions they can take to prepare for and minimize the potential adverse effects of the coronavirus, a letter seen by Reuters shows.
THE EUROPEAN UNION
European Union leaders have so far failed to agree radical measures to tackle the crisis. The head of the bloc's executive Ursula von der Leyen said the European Commission will set up a joint investment fund with firepower of 25 billion euros ($28 billion) from existing resources to cushion the blow to vulnerable sectors of the bloc's economies.
GERMANY
Germany's center-left coalition agreed to increase public investments by 12.4 billion euros by 2024 and to make it easier for companies to claim subsidies to support workers on reduced working hours to counter the effects of the coronavirus epidemic.
Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives are split over whether Germany should rush out a fiscal stimulus package to counter any impact of the coronavirus on Europe's largest economy.
Budget experts estimate the government has the fiscal room for additional measures worth at least 17 billion euros ($18.9 billion). Some officials say that Berlin could even put together a stimulus package worth up to 50 billion euros, without ditching the government's policy of no new debt.
BRITAIN
Britain launched a 30 billion-pound ($39 billion) economic stimulus plan just hours after the Bank of England slashed interest rates, a double-barreled package aimed at warding off the risk of a coronavirus recession.
The Bank of England cut interest rates by half a percentage point and offered banks cheaper funding and a reduction in capital buffers in an emergency move to bolster Britain's economy against disruption caused by the coronavirus outbreak.
FRANCE
French Finance Minister Bruno Le Marie has said that Europe needs to be ready to use fiscal stimulus to deal with the impact of the coronavirus.
The government is allowing companies to suspend payments of some social charges and taxes, and is activating state-subsidized short-time work schemes. It has ordered the Bpifrance state investment bank to guarantee loans needed to overcome short-term cash flow problems.
Paris has also allowed companies to declare force majeure due to the outbreak if they cannot honor a contract with the public sector, and is putting pressure on big companies to show similar leniency with subcontractors.
INDIA
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) plans to infuse fresh cash liquidity into the system through a second round of long-term repo operations (LTRO), government officials told Reuters, amid fears that the coronavirus outbreak will derail any revival of economic growth. One official said the RBI might inject as much as 1 trillion rupees ($13.6 billion) in the round that will begin as early as April.
The RBI has said it stands ready to act to maintain market confidence and preserve financial stability.
The government is, meanwhile, pushing state-run banks to approve new loans amounting to 500-600 billion rupees by the end of March, according to government sources.
ITALY
Italy has doubled the amount it plans to spend on tackling its coronavirus outbreak to 7.5 billion euros ($8.4 billion) and is raising this year's deficit goal to 2.5 percent of national output from the current 2.2 percent target.
Payments on mortgages will be suspended across the whole of Italy and Italy's banking lobby ABI said lenders would offer debt moratoriums to small firms and households grappling with the economic fallout from the virus.
CANADA
Finance Minister Bill Morneau said on March 9 that the government was "looking at taking some initiatives this week," as Canada reported its first coronavirus death, with a steep decline in oil prices expected to hit the world's fourth-largest crude producer hard.
The Bank of Canada lowered its benchmark overnight rate to 1.25 percent from 1.75 percent in response to the epidemic, prompting money markets to price in a better-than-even chance of another reduction next month. The last time it cut by 50 basis points was in 2009 during the financial crisis.
SOUTH KOREA
The government announced a stimulus package of 11.7 trillion won ($9.8 billion) to cushion the impact of the largest outbreak of coronavirus outside China.
Finance Minister Hong Nam-ki said the supplementary budget, subject to parliamentary approval, would channel money to the health system, childcare, and outdoor markets. An additional 10.3 trillion won in treasury bonds will be issued this year to fund the extra budget.
Seoul has also dramatically tightened rules on short-selling for three months. Starting March 11, stocks with a sudden and abnormal increase in short-selling transactions will be suspended from further short-selling for 10 days.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
