May
British Airways announced they will be making as many as 12,000 staff redundant
Pinch punch, first of the month! Welcome to the first day of May, a bright spring day but one overshadowed by the growing crisis. Yesterday, British Airways announced they will be making as many as 12,000 staff redundant. This was followed with Ryanair announcing they would be shedding 3,000 jobs.
The travel industry was always likely to be one of the hardest hit by the lockdown, but the numbers are still worrying. The economy will suffer badly and it will only get worse the longer the lockdown continues. I have read that Boris Johnson will in the next few days be announcing how the government plans to ease the restrictions, but I do not expect we will return to any kind of normality soon. Indeed, they will be watching Germany, where restrictions were eased recently, and where in some areas the numbers of those found to be infected with covid-19 is growing again. The government has a difficult balancing act to perform; trying to keep the number of cases under control while at the same time allowing the economy to function will not be easy.
Meanwhile in the US, Donald Trump says he has evidence that the virus was released from a laboratory in Wuhan in China. Is he flying a kite again, or does he really have any such evidence?
1st May 2020