Airlines could absorb losses totaling $113 billion because of business travel cancellations due to the coronavirus outbreak, the International Air Transport Association, a trade association for the world’s airlines, projected Thursday. In February, the group projected that losses would only total $29 billion.
Losses were originally expected to be confined to markets associated with China. Since then, the virus has spread to more than 80 countries, and forward bookings have been severely impacted on routes beyond China.
Cancellations are now occurring across the board, association CEO Alexandre De Juniac told CNBC on Thursday.
“We see a lot of cancellations of events; no Congress, conferences, meetings; that are purely and simply canceled. For the month of March, almost everything is canceled. April is not very good. For May and June, it’s too early to say,” he said.
Airline share prices have fallen nearly 25% since the outbreak began, some 21 percentage points greater than the decline that occurred at a similar point during the SARS crisis of 2003, according to the trade group.
During midday trading, American Airlines’ stock price was down more than 10%, Delta stock was down more than 7.5%, and United Airlines was down nearly 11%.
