May 16, 2024 What's News The text write and uses here if the customer wants to know minute estimate. We answer soon we confirm.   title : Airlines' Epidemic Woes     Airlines' Epidemic Woes For an airline industry whipsawed by three years of calamity, the latest disaster came in microscopic form. The outbreak of SARS, for severe acute respiratory syndrome, sent an industry already reeling into a still steeper tailspin last month. Although the outbreak of the disease in Asia was almost entirely passenger phenomenon, the huge pull back in airline capacity was felt across the aviation world, buffeting airlines that had seemed bursting with financial health. Cargo operators said they had absorbed the flight cancellations in the capacity-rich region, but for many the financial consequences if SARS was not quickly reined in loomed very large. For the airlines themselves, the question was especially urgent. Hong Kong-based Cathay Pacific Airways drew its capacity back more than 45 percent and issued denials after reports in Asia that Cathay would actually ground its entire fleet in May. Continental Airlines suspended its New York-Hong Kong service and Hong Kong-based Dragonair pared back China services it had trumpeted in an expansion over the last two years. Many large companies - including air freight stalwarts such as Intel, IBM and Singapore-based Flextronics - have restricted travel but said their Asian manufacturing operations have been largely unaffected. The larger fear was that the spread of the crisis beyond relatively isolated pockets could damage productivity in the key manufacturing center of southern China. Greg Burns, an investment analyst at J.P. Morgan, warned that travel bans could lead to fewer export orders out of Asia in the fall and postponement of factory projects in China if the spread of the disease is not restrained. The gap between passenger and cargo traffic was clearly evident at airports. At Hong Kong International Airport, daily passenger traffic in the second week of April had fallen to a third of year-ago levels. Cargo traffic there grew 11.8 percent in March. In Singapore, where passengers at Changi Airport were being screened for SARS, a spokesman for Singapore Airlines said, "So far, cargo volumes are holding up, as demand for capacity continues to be good in many markets. However, the outbreak of SARS in some countries will have an impact on global economic activity if it is not resolved soon." Cathay said the canceled flights had cut cargo capacity 15 percent but that there were no backlogs or disruptions in cargo service at Hong Kong. BAX Global said it had handled the urgent shipment of 500,000 surgical-style face masks filling more than 100 pallets to Hong Kong in a rush to halt the spread of SARS. Air cargo customers were wary the huge cuts in capacity would cut into their ability to move goods in the region, but most believe overall logistics chains would remain unaffected as long as SARS is kept in check. "Intra-Asia trade lanes will feel the biggest impact because they normally depend on belly space of passenger flights more than long-haul lanes such as the trans-Pacific where freighter capacity has always been the mainstay," said Donald Woo, president of TGAX Logistics, a forwarder based in Hong Kong. Forwarder Exel says the dramatic pull-down of passenger capacity because of the Iraq war and the SARS scare translated into a 3 percent reduction in cargo capacity worldwide. Ole Ringheim, Exel's vice president of global air freight, said the forwarder had faced "no delays or significant challenges in finding quality capacity." But, he added, "The financial status of the airline industry and its continued development will ultimately have an impact on our customers, and if capacity reductions continue for months and months, which is doubtful, the costs of air freight will start to go up."