US start-up carrier Avatar Airlines, has written to the federal authorities to access the emergency financial assistance for passenger airlines, despite not planning to start operations until 2021
In fact, Avatar said its current operational status meant it was unimpacted by COVID 19, and as such was better placed to weather the storm than existing carriers.
“With the out-break of COVID-19, and despite the efforts of the Stimulus package, there will, unfortunately, be casualties in an industry currently characterized both by high debt and high breakeven load factors,” said Avatar in a statement.
“As the coronavirus essentially shuts down one carrier after another, Avatar continues to move forward as it is not and will not be impacted by COVID 19 given our current plans to be fully operational by mid-2021.
As a start-up, we have no flights, no overhead, administrative expense, or fixed costs at the present time, and when we are fully operational anticipate adding 2000-3000 full-time employees.
Our plan is to work our way through the five phase DOT/FAA certification process that normally takes approximately 12 months to complete. We are presently in Phase 1 with the initial in-brief meeting with the DOT/FAA tentatively scheduled for the end of May of this year.”