After The Outbreak, China Civil Aviation Or Brewing A New Round Of Restructuring?

"Now is a good opportunity for reorganization of aviation enterprises. We should respect the wishes of enterprises and follow the requirements of their own development and operate according to the law of industrial development." On February 18th, at the news conference held by the State Council new office, Ren Hongbin, deputy director of the State Council SASAC, said in answer to the twenty-first Century economic reporter's question, on the issue of restructuring, the SASAC will support enterprises as usual as structural adjustment.

Coincidentally, Xiong Jie, director of the China Civil Aviation Administration's press spokesman and aviation safety office, also revealed that in addition to tax, finance and other aspects of helping airlines to reduce costs, they also supported the joint reorganization and optimization of transport capacity according to the needs of the airlines in February.

The delicate language of the government has triggered the market's limitless reverie.

"The impact of the epidemic and the CAAC's deregulation of the strategic restructuring policy will catalyze the release of the potential reorganization of the aviation secretary." Aviation Resource Network Expert Qi Qi believes that in 2020, China's civil aviation industry will usher in another round of changes.

The first wave of the restructured market, nearly two days, was affected by the rumors of restructuring, and the stock of many listed companies of Hainan group company fluctuated.

Epidemic shock wave

After the outbreak of the outbreak of new crown virus pneumonia, people's travel demand has rapidly declined, and the aviation industry has become the "worst hit area" affected by the epidemic. The Spring Festival is supposed to be the peak season of the aviation industry every year, but this year there is a rare "spring transport loss".

Affected by the outbreak of new coronavirus pneumonia, China's air transport market has been in decline since the Spring Festival, and there has been a negative growth. Li Jian, deputy director of the Civil Aviation Administration of China, revealed that as of February 15th, China and foreign airlines handled more than 20 million returned tickets, with a face value exceeding 20 billion yuan. The air traffic volume dropped significantly. From January 25th to February 14th, the average daily passenger transport volume was 470 thousand, which is 1/4 in the same period last year. From the recent forecast, the passenger flow is still decreasing. In from February 15th to 23rd, the average daily passenger is not expected to exceed 200 thousand passengers. The passenger flow rate is less than 1/10 during the peak period, and the occupancy rate is less than 40%.

According to the latest research report released by Huachang securities in February 14th, the air passenger volume dropped by 5.3% in January and the guest rate dropped by 5.1%. In January, the volume of passenger transport was 50 million 600 thousand, down 5.3% from the same period last year, of which 7% in the domestic market and 8.4% in the international market. The guest rate was 76.7%, down 5.1%. After January 23rd, the utilization rate of industrial aircraft dropped to around 5 hours, and the occupancy rate dropped to below 50%.

Data has been worse since February, with passenger traffic dropping by about 8. 35 days before the Spring Festival (10-2 January, 13), 1 billion 414 million passengers were sent to the country, with a decrease of 46.6% in the same caliber, of which the air traffic volume dropped by 41.4%. According to the observation of the institution, air transport volume of 3 million 640 thousand passengers on 1-13 February, dropped by about 85% compared with the same period last year, and the average daily traffic volume was only 280 thousand. Compared to 2019, the average daily traffic volume was about 1 million 800 thousand.

The Research Report of Huachang securities also shows that the air traffic rate of all major airlines has generally declined. The three largest airlines in January totaled ASK growth of 4%, RPK growth rate of -1.3%, passenger rate 76.3%, down 4.1% compared with the same period last year, including China Southern Airlines, Air China and Eastern Airlines respectively down 3.7, 3.3 and 5.4 percentage points respectively. From the perspective of passenger traffic volume, the three major air routes were the most affected, and the air passenger volume of Air China, Eastern Airlines and China Southern Airlines decreased by 18.7%, 28.39% and 36.22%, respectively.

Compared with the "three major airlines", the fourth airlines are facing a particularly difficult situation. In 2019, the cash flow of Hainan Airlines has been in short supply, and the outbreak of the epidemic is undoubtedly exacerbated. Despite the outbreak, the financial sector has increased support for corporate credit and reduced the difficulty of financing, but the situation has not improved.

Small and medium-sized private airlines are also having a bad time. Companies such as Ao Kai, Ruili, Qingdao airlines and so on all changed their equity in 2019. The existing data show that since January, the visiting rates of spring and autumn and auspicious were 82.4% and 75.8%, respectively, down 7.9% and 6.8% compared with the same period last year, and the drop was more than three. In February, the major airlines were grounded on a large scale.

As of February 20th, according to the frequent statistics, 14 thousand and 300 scheduled flights were planned in China, and the number of scheduled flights was slightly higher than that of the previous few days, reaching 4194 sorties. However, the number of cancelled flights still amounted to 10126 sorties. On the execution of international flights, the number of cancelled flights was 2628 sorties, and only 1489 flights were taken.

In addition, Hubei's airlines will face the most difficult year in the outbreak. According to the January 2020 China civil aviation market briefing released by Fei Chang, the number of Wuhan Tianhe Airport flights in the tens of thousands of airports decreased by 24.38% compared with the previous year, which was affected by the new crown pneumonia epidemic. Among them, domestic flights decreased by 26.03% compared to the same period last year, and international / regional flights decreased by 7.14% over the same period last year. Wuhan Tianhe domestic flight decelerated faster than international / regional flights. In 2019, Wuhan airport's passenger throughput reached 27 million 150 thousand passengers, an increase of 10.8% over the same period last year. It was the only airport that grew faster than 10% in the 24 20 million tier airports. The national ranking also rose two to fourteenth.

Therefore, both airports and airlines, as well as enterprises in the aviation industry chain, will be hit hard in the first two or three months of this year. The financial data of Air China, China Eastern Airlines and China Southern Airlines show that under normal circumstances, the daily revenue of the three largest airlines is about 4-5 billion yuan in three. However, under the epidemic situation, the revenue forecast is only about 20% of the normal situation, and the loss per day is over one hundred million yuan. It is estimated that the loss of every three airlines in February will exceed 3 billion yuan. Many medium-sized Airlines lose more than ten million dollars a day.

Qi Qi said that airlines need a large amount of cash flow to maintain operation. The outbreak of the outbreak led to a sharp decline in market demand. Airlines' grounded flights, a large number of pre-sale air tickets refund will tighten the cash flow. The small and medium Aviation Division will bear the brunt, and Hainan Airlines's risk exposure is very large except Hainan Airlines.

Recombinant multiple choice questions

For this reason, the government supports the joint reorganization of the civil aviation industry. In February 11th, the CAAC held an analysis meeting on the safe operation of civil aviation in February. Feng Zhenglin, director of the civil aviation bureau, pointed out: "we should pay attention to the risk of production and operation in the industry, further promote the measures of reducing taxes and reducing fees, study the charging standards of government related enterprises, and support the aviation enterprises to carry out joint reorganization and optimization of transport capacity according to their needs, so as to help enterprises tide over the difficulties."

In February 18th, when Hong Bin again responded to the reorganization and integration of the aviation industry, he revealed that at present, the main energy of the three major aviation central enterprises is still fighting against the epidemic situation. There is no restructuring plan for how to carry out the charter flights well. SASAC Secretary General Peng Huagang also denied that the three major airlines had submitted a reorganization plan for approval.

However, the absence of the plan does not mean that the intention of restructuring is not there. Qi Qi told the twenty-first Century economic report that although there was a continuous report on the restructuring of the aviation industry in 2019, the scale and intensity were relatively small. The key to whether the airline is to enter the reorganization operation is the "cost of living" and "survival ability" of each domestic shipping division. In order to survive, it is possible to reorganize or actively seek reorganization. This requires continuous attention to the development of the epidemic, which is the "analgesic" or "catalyst" of the market players in the civil aviation market.

That is to say, the willingness to reorganize depends on the extent of the epidemic. At present, the government has introduced a series of policies and measures to assist the industries and enterprises affected by the epidemic so as to help enterprises restore confidence and overcome difficulties.

Xiong Jie said that in addition to implementing the policy of the Civil Aviation Development Fund, which had been exempted from airlines, the Civil Aviation Administration will continue to actively seek financial subsidy policies for the epidemic prevention and control of civil aviation enterprises to the relevant departments of the state. The measures to further reduce the cost burden of civil aviation enterprises are put forward, such as airport aviation business fees and free air passage fees, etc., which are free from take-off and landing fees for civil aviation enterprises carrying out epidemic prevention and control tasks.

In order to survive the "cold winter", the Secretary also tightened his clothes. It is understood that, in addition to reducing transport capacity, the domestic airline has also formulated a new round of rest plan for the new crown pneumonia during the period of the outbreak of the new crown pneumonia, which involves many positions such as flight, crew, navigation, clothing, sales, administration and so on. Most employees also understand the company's emergency policy.

But it is hard to see whether self-help and government rescue measures can save the industry through the winter. A retired civil aviation official told the twenty-first Century economic report that there were probably many airlines that had difficulty in spending the winter.

Lin Zhijie, a civil aviation expert, believes that the government will introduce some bonus policies, such as exempt from the Civil Aviation Development Fund and so on to help enterprises survive. It also includes airlines. If the Secretary can not survive, market restructuring is also possible, not necessarily through government led.

Now there is speculation that who is likely to be restructured and who will lead the reorganization. In recent days, Hainan Airlines listed companies that have led to share price revelry or capital market's emphasis on aviation reorganization themes.

Lin Zhijie pointed out that in the past month, airlines had not paid enough money to refund the tickets they received on the same day, and every day there was a large net outflow of cash. "Companies with good health are all sad," "all basic diseases are serious," and are facing life and death tests. Lin Zhijie said that if the epidemic lasts for 2-3 months, some airlines can continue to play a "question mark".

In Qi Qi's view, HNA Group is already focusing on its main business and selling its assets on a large scale. Hainan Airlines is actually regarded as the group's high quality assets, and the epidemic has led to its undervalued value.

"The three major airlines are unable to protect themselves and transport capacity. What do they want to do? And debt. " Qi Qi believes that non-public capital is more logical than Hainan airlines. So he speculated that there were two ways to restructure. First, the non aviation capital and the syndicate as a whole acquire Hainan's aviation assets; two, Hainan airlines will take part in the joint operation of the three airlines on the basis of the separation of the bases.

The civil aviation retirees, who do not want to be named, do not think so. He told the twenty-first Century economic report that CAAC never gave up the idea of building a super carrier. Compared to the merger and reorganization of the three major airlines, it is even more difficult that Hainan Airlines, one of the three largest airlines in the world, is ranked the fourth in restructuring. HNA is a good target for restructuring, and it does not involve complex personnel problems. More importantly, "who swallowed up HNA, decided who is the new CAAC." The official bluntly pointed out that complementarity, the lack of Air China's domestic routes, if the network can be supplemented by HNA, the overall strength will surpass China Southern Airlines first.

In twenty-first Century, the economic report reporters confirmed to HNA on the night of 19. As of 21:30, the official replied that there was no information inside to be disclosed to the outside world. Late at night, HNA denied the takeover rumors to its employees.