Of course, the title of this post is a little misleading in that the airline industry is not the only industry facing extraordinary pressure because of the global pandemic. However, it does provide an interesting case study to show how the pandemic can affect an industry in a number of different ways. Just some of those pressures will be discussed in today’s post. One of the first consequences to the airlines was the detailing of a number of ‘ ghost flights ’ taking place around a number of important hubs. These ghost flights describe the process whereby an airline will fly an empty (or severely reduced capacity) flight in order to maintain a specific slot in an airport’s schedule. A number of slots on high-profile routes can be worth tens-of-millions of dollars to an airline, and a massive secondary market exists for such slots. However, under EU rules as just one example, an airline must use 80% of these allocated slots or risk losing them to a competitor. As the slots are par...

A number of developments regarding stories that we have been covering for quite a while here in Financial Regulation Matters have taken place recently, so in this post we will look at some updates on each one to see how the issues are developing. Fiat-Chrysler Finally Merge with PSA Peugeot We last looked at developments within the automotive industry in September with the credit downgrade of Ford , but one of the underlying sentiments within the industry has been that companies may, or will need to merge in order to survive their environment. Tougher regulations, increased costs, potentially saturated marketplaces, the need to keep up with technological advancement, and inconsistent and unpredictable economic and social arenas are making the job of manufacturing and selling cars much harder. The three largest automotive players are Toyota, Volkswagen, and the Renault-Nissan alliance. Now, the fourth largest is this new PSA-Fiat Chrysler merged partnership which, according...