Canada's Air Transat to axe 2,000 staff, seek extra funding 15.09.2020 - 10:54 UTC Air Transat (TS, Montréal Trudeau) parent Transat A.T. will lay off around 2,000 employees, 40% of its total staff, after having posted a 99% drop in revenues for the quarter ended July 31, 2020. Speaking during a quarterly investor call, Chief Executive Jean-Marc Eustache indicated that the layoffs would come into effect after December 19, 2020, when the Canadian federal wage subsidisation programme is scheduled to expire, subject to the improvement in the market environment until that time. The Canadian tour operating and airline group said that it would seek additional financing to bolster its cash position, which amounted to CAD576.4 million Canadian dollars (USD437.5 million) at the end of July 2020. Air Transat said it was in "advanced discussions to set up additional financing", without going into details about the terms and the type of financing. It did, however, warn that the ongoing takeover by Air Canada (AC, Montréal Trudeau) could jeopardise the transaction. "The covenants undertaken under the arrangement agreement with Air Canada restrict and govern the Corporation's capacity to...

Air Canada targets almost $553mn in private funding 15.09.2020 - 00:06 UTC Air Canada (AC, Montréal Trudeau) plans to raise just over USD552.6 million in Enhanced Equipment Trust Certificates (EETCs) - a security used in aircraft finance in North America in which a borrower leases assets from a specially created trust - with the aim of financing 16 aircraft that were delivered between 2001 and 2019, Fitch Ratings reported. The aircraft currently serve as collateral under Air Canada's USD600 million bridge loan facility, and the proceeds from the offering will be used to pay down this credit facility, which closed in April 2020. The sum to be raised in the Air Canada Pass Through Trust Series 2020-2 consists of USD452,625,000 class A certificates due in April 2029, which Fitch rates A-, and USD100,000,000 class B certificates due in October 2025, rated BBB-. The collateral pool will include nine A321-200s, one B777-200(LR), three B767-300(ER)s, and three B787-8s. Five of the A321s were delivered in 2001 and are approaching 20 years old, while the other four were delivered in 2013 and 2014. The...