GOING DOWN, GOING BUST, GOING OUT

BUS INDUSTRY FURLOUGHS 80,000 WORKERS. The U.S. motorcoach industry has idled 80 percent of its workforce, or about 80,000 workers, as the pandemic and economic shutdown have slammed the brakes on long-distance bus travel that had been providing about 600 million passenger trips a year, according to the American Bus Association.
In an industry that sees $15 billion in revenue during a normal year, this year’s receipts have been about $4 billion, the association told CNN Business.
The industry received no allotment from the federal CARES economic rescue program and is petitioning the government for $10 billion in loans and grants.
CATHAY PACIFIC CUTS 6,000 JOBS, KILLS DRAGON BRAND. Hong Kong’s airline had planned to fire 8,000 workers but will cut only 6,000 after the city-state’s government intervened, sources close to the company’s board of directors told CNN.
Future layoffs will be made if the pandemic is not controlled and ticket sales do not pick up, the sources said.
The reduction equates to about 24 percent of the airline’s workforce, a smaller percentage than many carriers have made since the shutdown began.
The airline is also permanently grounding its Cathay Dragon regional airline, bringing staff and assets under the Cathay Pacific umbrella.
Cathay Pacific will operate at less than 50-percent capacity through 2021, the company said in a 19 October statement, noting that normal traffic might not return until 2024.
The airline lost the equivalent of US $1.27 billion during the first six months of this year and is consuming about U.S. $2 billion a month of its liquid assets to stay in business.
WISCONSIN APPLE GOES BUST. The company, which operates 25 Applebee’s franchise sites in the Badger State, cited rising costs and meager sales as factors underlying the decision to seek Chapter 11 protection.
The bankruptcy was triggered when workers at least two stores tested positive for the COVID virus, forcing the sites to close and be fumigated and sanitized.
The company filed bankruptcy “rather than let the restaurants go dark and have over 600 employees without a job,” said company president Seenu Kastori.
COUNTRY USA, ROCK USA ANNOUNCE BANKRUPTCY. The organizers of Oshkosh, Wisconsin’s two big annual music festivals say that bankruptcy is the best way to refund ticketholders’ money after the two festivals were canceled this year.
A claim form will be sent to all ticketholders, the organizers said.
CINEWORLD SHUTS ALL U.S., U.K. THEATERS. With the new James Bond film’s release pushed back months and the COVID virus’s renewed strength in the U.S. and Europe, Cineworld Group has fulfilled its plan to suspend all operations at its more than 650 movie houses in the two countries.
The company had begun reopening theaters in July but ticket sales were weakened by social distancing mandates.
Cineworld, the world’s second-largest theater owner, will consider reopening theaters “when key markets have more concrete guidance on their reopening status and, in turn, studios are able to bring their pipeline of major releases back to the big screen,” CEO Mooky Greidinger said in a statement.
The shutdown leaves 45,000 employees without work. Cineworld’s share price fell 42 percent on the news.
The company is “assessing several sources of additional liquidity and all liquidity-raising options are being considered,” Greidinger said.