The CEO who will be watching today to measure the rebound in air travel
United Airlines President Scott Kirby speaking in Chicago, Illinois, on June 5, 2019.
Kamil Krzaczynski | Reuters
Do you want to measure air transport rebound? Look at United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby. A year ago, Kirby, then president of the Chicago-based airline, was perhaps the most pessimistic company chief about the Covid-19 pandemic and warned investors at a JP Morgan industry conference in March that the company was preparing for a sharp drop in revenue.
The declines even exceeded Kirby’s expectations. U.S. airlines lost $ 35 billion combined last year.
After Congress approved each of the two rounds of government payroll support last year, Kirby and other U.S. executives warned about the challenges ahead. After Congress approved the third round of payroll grants last week, Kirby seemed to take a more optimistic tone, saying in a LinkedIn post that “our teams will be able to stay up to date on their training and ready to meet the expected future demand “.
Kirby, who became CEO of United last May, returns to the JP Morgan industry conference today, presenting at 9:40 a.m. ET
–Leslie Josephs
According to Gottlieb, the European points in the Covid case are no longer a prediction of what the United States can expect.
Dr. Scott Gottlieb told CNBC that coronavirus developments in Europe are no longer predictive of what will happen a few weeks later in the U.S., unlike earlier phases of the pandemic.
“Everything that happened in Europe finally happened here. Now I think things have changed. We are ahead of Europe,” the former FDA chief said.
Some European nations, such as Italy, are once again imposing tougher public health restrictions in response to an increase in covid infections. However, Gottlieb noted that the U.S. has a larger portion of its population receiving at least one dose of coronavirus vaccine compared to member states of the European Union and the European Economic Area.
“The fact that we haven’t seen coronavirus growth increase … even though B117 is becoming the prevalent strain in the United States, I think it bodes well,” Gottlieb said.
–Kevin Stankiewicz
Outreach: Scott Gottlieb is a CNBC contributor and board member of Pfizer, the start of Tempus genetic testing, and biotech company Illumina. Gottlieb is also co-chair of Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings and the Royal Caribbean Healthy Sail Panel.
Hundreds of Tesla workers tested positive for Covid
Public health data came to light over the weekend that hundreds of Tesla workers have tested positive for coronavirus at the Fremont, California factory.
Emily Glazer, a journalist for The Wall Street Journal, and Dan Primack, business editor for Axios, joined CNBC’s “Squawk Box” to discuss the development and other big Tesla headlines.
European Union countries clash over the unequal distribution of vaccines
Six European Union countries (Austria, Latvia, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Croatia and Slovenia) have expressed concerns about how the bloc distributes Covid-19 vaccines after AstraZeneca again slows its delivery targets.
They are concerned that, without any change, some EU nations “will be able to achieve herd immunity in a few weeks, while others will be far behind,” they said in a letter.
His complaint follows the news that AstraZeneca will not meet its delivery targets in the coming months. The Swedish-British pharmaceutical firm confirmed to CNBC that it will deliver 30 million doses to the EU by the end of the first quarter and 70 million more doses during the second quarter.
These figures are below what the blog expected to receive.
–Silvia Amaro
Facebook is starting to tag all posts about Covid vaccines
The Facebook logo is displayed on the phone screen and keyboard.
Jakub Porzycki | NurPhoto via Getty Images
Facebook will begin adding tags to posts about the safety of Covid-19 vaccines and will soon tag all posts about the shots, Reuters reported.
The social media giant has been criticized for allowing misinformation about vaccines to spread on the company’s platforms, according to Reuters.
Facebook said it would also launch a tool in the United States to provide users with information on where to get Covid vaccines and add a Covid information area to its Instagram site for sharing photos, the cabling service said.
–Terri Cullen
Ireland and the Netherlands join the growing list of countries to suspend the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine
Ireland and the Netherlands have become the latest countries to suspend the use of the coronavirus vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University for safety reasons.
Several European countries, including Denmark, Norway, Iceland and Bulgaria, have already stopped using the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine following reports of blood clots in some vaccinated people. Thailand became the first Asian country to stop the use of the punch last week.
The Dutch government has said the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine will not be used nationwide until at least March 29, while Ireland said earlier in the day that it had temporarily suspended shooting as a precautionary measure.
The World Health Organization has tried to minimize ongoing safety concerns, saying last week that there is no link between the shot and an increased risk of developing blood clots.
“Sam Meredith.”
JetBlue says bookings are intensifying as the industry spins
JetBlue Airways claims that demand for air travel has increased in recent weeks, a trend that will help reduce the company’s losses as the number of passengers rises to the highest levels in a year.
“While booking trends continue to be annoying, in recent weeks JetBlue has experienced an improvement in bookings by leisure and visitors from friends and family …” JetBlue says in an archive.
New York-based JetBlue says it expects its EBITDA to be negative at $ 490 billion and $ 540 million negative, compared to a previous estimate of losses of $ 525 million to $ 625 million. Revenues for the first quarter will continue to fall from 61% to 64% compared to 2019 in the first quarter of the year, he estimated, after previously forecasting a 70% decline.
Shares of JetBlue are up 4.7% in premarket trading.
–Leslie Josephs