VOA常速英语:Airlines Await Aid Deal Industry Hopes Will Help Keep it Afloat a Few More Months

Its been a bumpy ride for the airline industry since the coronavirus pandemic hit the world.
自从冠状病毒大流行席卷全球以来，航空业经历了一段坎坷的旅程。
The industrys downturn dwarfs previous crisis says karl moore of mcgill university.
麦吉尔大学的卡尔·穆尔表示，该行业经历了严重低迷。
Were looking at flighting down in the area of 90 less in March and April than they were the year before.
我们看到在3月和4月的飞行比前一年减少90%。
So its a time of enormous crisis and there are hundreds of thousands of people who work in the airline industry
所以这是一个巨大的危机时刻，有成千上万的人在航空业工作
And when you think of the allied industries of travel of hotels,
当你想到酒店业的相关行业时，
its millions of Americans in these industries.
这是数以百万计的美国人在这些行业。
Nearly 5 million air transport jobs globally are at risk according to estimates by the air transport action group.
根据航空运输行动小组的估计，全球近500万空运工作处于危险之中。
Earlier this year US airline companies received billions in the form of cash and loans that helped keep them afloat.
今年早些时候，美国航空公司收到了数十亿美元的现金和贷款，帮助它们维持运营。
The hope was that the virus would have subsided by now, it hasnt.
希望病毒现在已经消退了，现在还没有。
And what weve seen is domestic travel in the US has gone up some,
我们所看到的是美国的国内旅游增加了一些，
but international travel is down horrifically.
但国际旅行却在可怕地下滑。
And even domestic travel is not anywhere near what it was last year.
即使是国内旅游，也远不及去年的水平。
So we have the ongoing crisis we have maybe a second wave,
所以我们有了持续的危机--也许还有第二波，
certainly a lot more people getting sick than we had hoped at this time of year.
当然，每年这个时候生病的人比我们预想的要多。
So its its a thing where the industrys troubles have gone beyond six or seven months
所以这个行业的麻烦已经过去了六七个月
and will go on for some months and perhaps a couple years to come.
而且还会持续几个月甚至几年。
Negotiations between congress and the white house on the new aid package continue
国会与白宫之间关于新援助计划的谈判仍在继续。
with few signs that an agreement will be reached soon.
几乎没有迹象表明很快就会达成协议。
This has led airlines to cut jobs offer early retirement and take other cost-cutting measures.
这导致航空公司裁员，提前退休，并采取其他削减成本的措施。
But some experts know that with airlines raking in profits over the last decade,
但一些专家知道，随着航空公司在过去十年中获得利润，
they could have made better decisions even though they could not foresee the pandemic.
他们本可以做出更好的决定，即使他们无法预见到疫情。
In the last few years prior to COVID,this industry paid huge amounts,
在之前的几年里，在疫情之前，这个行业付出了巨大的代价，
really huge amount of dividends to the shareholders as well as stock repurchase which is equivalent to a dividend.
给股东的股利和股票回购都是非常巨大的，这相当于股利。
You get the stock back and pays them out.Basically they left with very little cash.
你把股票拿回来还钱。基本上他们没带多少现金就离开了。
Chaked in a recent article argues that decisions made last year by the airlines were short-sighted.
查克在最近的一篇文章中指出，去年航空公司做出的决定是目光短浅的。
If you take a look at 2019 for example,
例如，如果你看一下2019年，
this industry paid itself and I talk only about the American, United southwest alaska and jet blue.
这个行业自负盈亏，我只谈美国航空，联合西南阿拉斯加和jetblue航空。
Just these five and delta.They paid out dividends of 1.7 billion and a stocky purchase of 7.4 billion.
只有这五个和德尔塔航空。他们支付了17亿美元的股息和74亿英镑的大量购买。
If you combine these two,
如果你把这两者结合起来，
you talk about almost like a seven eight nine billion dollars in one year out of the company.
你说的差不多是780亿美元，一年之内就有780亿美元。
But for now,combined third quarter losses for American, United, Delta,Southwest and Alaska Air have exceeded 11.5 billion dollars.
但就目前而言，美国、曼联、三角洲三季度合并亏损，西南航空和阿拉斯加航空已经超过115亿美元。
VOA News Washington
美国之音华盛顿新闻