Stolen from Vigilant1's thread.
Posted on 04/13/2003 6:55:57 PM PDT by blam
Walt Disney and airlines admit Sars virus is crippling business
By William Kay
14 April 2003
Walt Disney, the international theme park company, and several airlines yesterday warned that their business is being damaged by the impact of severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars). Their warnings follow similar statements last week by British Airways and BAA, the airports operator, and will send waves of apprehension through investors in global hotel businesses.
In a filing with Washington's Securities and Exchange Commission, Disney said concerns over "and uncertainty surrounding the transmission of this illness may also contribute to a reluctance to travel. This tends to adversely affect our resort locations and in particular our largest resort location, Walt Disney World [in Florida], where our guests tend to travel from farther away."
The disease has infected about 3,000 people globally and killed at least 125. Symptoms include shortness of breath, fever, coughing and body aches. There is no known cure. Sars has hit Hong Kong and southern China especially hard and has forced airlines throughout the Asia-Pacific region to reduce services.
A World Health Organisation warning against visiting Hong Kong and neighbouring Guangdong province has led business and leisure travellers to postpone or cancel trips to Hong Kong. British Airways said last week that passengers travelling on Asia-Pacific routes had fallen by a quarter.
Cathay Pacific Airways, Asia's fourth-largest carrier, said yesterday it would not rule out grounding its passenger fleet because demand for travel had been badly hit Sars.
"If demand falls still further, we will have to respond accordingly," Tony Tyler, director of corporate development at Cathay, told Reuters. "Clearly we can't rule out any particular course of action, but we will respond to circumstances." He was speaking after an internal internet memo revealed that Cathay's passenger numbers could fall below 6,000 per day in May, which the memo said could drive the carrier to consider grounding its passenger fleet.
Mr Tyler said: "The notice that was posted to our staff simply reflected the fact that, if things deteriorated, then we'd have to take appropriate steps." Cathay is carrying about 10,000 passengers per day, compared with 30,000 normally.
Passenger traffic in the past few days through Hong Kong's Chek Lap Kok airport, one of Asia's busiest, has fallen more than 60 per cent, the city's airport authority said. Yesterday 195 flights, 37 per cent of those scheduled, were cancelled, the highest percentage since the virus began spreading in March in Hong Kong.
The Sars epidemic has for many airlines coincided with a downturn in business resulting from the war on Iraq..
Iberia Lineas Aereas de Espana, Spain's largest airline, is expected this week to report a downturn in March through a combination of Iraq, Sars and slowing economies, according to airline analysts. "The industry is in an awful state," said Chris Tarry, an independent aviation analyst. "There were structural problems way before the 11 September attacks, and they've just been brought right into the foreground."
Deutsche Lufthansa and Sweden's SAS Group last week accelerated cost cuts and Alitalia must cut jobs to stay in business, said its chief executive, Francesco Mengozzi. Qantas Airways, Australia's largest airline, which is 19 per cent-owned by British Airways, is shedding 1,400 jobs, 4 per cent of its workforce, after bookings dropped by as much as a quarter on international routes. Singapore Airlines has said it will reduce capacity by almost 20 per cent.
BAA, the world's largest airports operator, said the number of passengers using its UK airports fell 3.1 per cent in March, the first drop since June, because of the Iraq war. It also blamed the timing of Easter. North Atlantic passenger numbers dropped 8.9 per cent from a year ago. Other long-haul traffic was 12 per cent lower, BAA said.
Analysts said the impact from Sars on airlines was bound to be felt by international hotel groups such as Hilton and Intercontinental.
What happens when people start refusing to go to work? Will the world come to a halt? Shall I replenish my Y2K supplies? Am I gonna die of SARS? Who is John Galt?
Well, if everybody is like me, in the short term things could actually prosper. I have been spending money like water since I have been convinced time is short.
So, have you decided it's time to max out the credit cards?
It must be especially nasty if someone with AIDs were to get SARS--don't people with AIDS have seriously compromised immune systems?
God always manages to bring some good out of a tragedy ;-)
Nah, I am not a debt person so it would have to be really grim for me to take that route.
I'd say it's grim but I am still holding out hope for something...
Staff and agencies
Monday April 14, 2003
The Guardian
Five more Sars patients have died in Hong Kong, health officials said yesterday.
The latest deaths from the flu-like, severe acute respiritory syndrome pushed Hong Kong's total to 40 and, together with three more fatalities reported in Singapore, took the global toll to at least 133.
Earlier yesterday, Cathay Pacific Airways acknowledged that an executive had warned in a memo that its entire passenger fleet could be grounded if the disease continued to have a serious effect on Asia's travel industry.
A Cathay spokeswoman insisted there were no plans to cease operations. But the memo, first reported in local newspapers, underlined the financial damage Sars has inflicted.
Meanwhile, Hong Kong's airport authority said that traffic at Chek Lap Kok airport had plunged to about a third of where it stood last year, with 30% of flights cancelled in recent days. It warned: "Our core business is under threat."
In Manila, presidential spokesman Ignacio Bunye said Filipina maids planning to return home from Hong Kong would be checked by doctors at the Philippines consulate in the territory. About 145,000 maids from the Philippines work in Hong Kong.
Stolen from Vigilant1's thread.
One thing i am wondering, and have only seen referred to once, is this: The SARS death rate is supposedly around 3.5 or 4%, for those hospitalized, sometimes on ventilators. Does anyone have any educated guesses on what might be the death rate if a person has no medical care?
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