News notes from around the interweb:
- Bizarre. A look at how LAX is spending that federal bailout money on expensive PR campaigns about staying connected to the airport when you aren’t traveling. (HT: David Rowell)
- The former CEO of Garuda Indonesia has received an 8 year sentence for receiving bribes related to the purchase of Airbus aircraft and engines.
- Hertz, on the verge of bankruptcy, is restoring executive pay. They are skipping payments to vendors, and furloughing workers, but their executives are working really hard so…
- When the pandemic hit Reddit was on the verge of launching an ad campaign in airports.
One of the components would hit travelers with billboards at airports with a message to visit r/FlightsFromHell, one of the small communities on the website.
“We had concepts like being in airports and talking about communities like ‘Flights From Hell,’” says Roxy Young, VP of marketing at Reddit, in a phone interview Wednesday, “because what better moment in time than to step off an airplane and have something that is contextually relevant in front of you.”
- Perhaps you’d plan a socially-distanced summer road trip but your car isn’t up to it? Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan 10,000 miles for a 5+ day rental
- American Express reportedly charging $25 to re-open an account you had earlier closed.
- How Mahan Air spread COVID-19 throughout the Mideast
Mahan Air Airbus A310, Dusseldorf Germany, Copyright ewastudio / 123RF Stock Photo
The Alaska deal is for *up to* 10K miles and its only valid for premium car types and depends on rental company. Just FYI.
Gary – I know GE thinks they’re hot stuff, but they don’t yet own Rolls Royce (the engine manufacturer actually mentioned in the Garuda article)
There’s a lot of press about Hertz being in such dire financial straits. Are the other two big rental conglomerates doing notably better?
@Christian While business is down significantly at Avis-Budget and Enterprise Holdings, Hertz is in much worse shape than the other two because they had significantly more debt and also were slow to react to the looming crisis.
Avis Budget acted quickly to shore up their finances by negotiating an additional $750 million in borrowing capacity from its JPMorgan-led lending group. That $750 million is on top of the $1.6 billion in cash Avis had leading into the crisis.
Hertz, by contrast, according to reports, turned down a $300M-$500M loan from Barclays, thinking they would be fine. This was likely a fatal miscalculation on Hertz’s part and may result in them being forced into bankruptcy.
We have less visibility into Enterprise as they are a private company, but by most reports, they are financially better off (not to mention better run) than their two public rivals. While business is certainly down significantly for them, they have the financial resources and management experience to weather the storm. It’s even possible that they will come out of the pandemic even stronger than they were going into it since Hertz, and to a lesser degree, Avis Budget will be weakened.
@Jonathan – Thanks. That provides some great insight.