US airlines burn $10 billion a month as traffic plummets
US airlines are collectively burning more than $10 billion in cash per month and averaging fewer than two dozen passengers per domestic flight in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, industry trade group Airlines for America said in prepared testimony seen by Reuters ahead of a U.S. Senate hearing on Wednesday.
Even after grounding more than 3,000 aircraft, or nearly 50% of the active U.S. fleet, the group said its member carriers, which include the four largest U.S. airlines, are averaging just 17 passengers per domestic flight and 29 passengers per international flight.
“The U.S. airline industry will emerge from this crisis a mere shadow of what it was just three short months ago,” the group’s chief executive, Nicholas Calio, will say, according to his prepared testimony.
