Helloworld hoping for travel to resume in September

Travel agency Helloworld expects domestic travel to resume by September, followed by trans-Tasman markets in October or November.

Helloworld says mid to long-haul outbound travel will not resume until next year.

Travel agency Helloworld expects domestic travel to resume by September, closely followed by the reopening of trans-Tasman markets in October or November. But mid to long-haul outbound travel will not resume until next year — and will be largely dependent on wide distribution of a vaccine or cure for COVID-19.

In a market update released to the ASX on Friday, Melbourne-based Helloworld revealed collapsed airline Virgin owed it $3.7m in commission overrides and marketing income and it was awaiting details on recoverability from the airline’s administrators.

In brighter news, Helloworld said it was taking advantage of the federal government’s JobKeeper scheme as well as New Zealand’s Wage Subsidy to keep more than half of its staff employed, but at reduced hours.

Helloworld believes it can move to a break-even position by the December quarter, with a small profit likely within the 2021 first half, but the next six months should see the multinational agency incur cash losses of up to $2m a month.

Helloworld said it would not need to raise capital and had sufficient liquidity to maintain operations for at least the next 12 months, even though revenue from travel sales and operations has plummeted to 5 per cent of previous levels — a situation that will continue until at least September.

While January and February were both profitable months, Helloworld incurred a 58 per cent decline in total transaction values in March and a 57 per cent drop in revenues that month.

Initially, Helloworld reduced its staff of 1050 by 75 per cent at the start of April but has used the JobKeeper allowance and now has more than 560 staff in Australia and New Zealand em­ployed on reduced hours.