Thai Airways International (THAI) had earlier also announced a reduction of between 15 and 25 per cent in salaries and other perks for executives, from the president down, to trim costs in the midst of the virus outbreak.

“Due to the economic downturn and the outbreak of Covid-19 affecting various industries worldwide, particularly the tourism and aviation sectors, Bangkok Airways has reviewed and adjusted its strategic plan in response,” said BA president Puttipong Prasarttong-Osoth.

The plan includes measures to reduce expenditures in order to continue effective business operations. The measures will be in effect from Sunday “until further notice”.

They include:

• A decrease in flight frequency and flight terminations on certain routes according to passenger demand

• Salaries halved for the CEO/president, executive vice president of corporate administration and senior vice president of finance and accounting

• No salary increments in 2020 for department heads

• Certain benefits reduced for all management and employees

• All station managers (overseas and elsewhere in Thailand) to return to Bangkok

• All staff take leave without pay of 10-30 days depending on job level

The airline said the measures will not affect aviation and flight operation safety or passenger services.

BA’s total revenue last year was Bt28.6 billion, up by 2.4 per cent compared to 2018. Net profit was Bt356.7 million, up by 35.3 per cent.

The airline carried 5.86 million passengers last year, down 1.6 per cent from 2018.

“This is a great offer,” chief executive Corie Barry said in an earnings call last year. “It’s great for our brand. It’s great for our customers.” It also could bring in tens of millions of dollars in revenue each year, internal documents show.

But some store and corporate employees say the program has become polarizing. They contend it preys on the chain’s most financially vulnerable shoppers, who often end up paying twice the list price for electronics, appliances and mobile phones.

Participants are required to pay a one-time $79 fee and allow Progressive Leasing to access their checking accounts for the payments — which are automatically withdrawn and timed to the frequency of their paychecks — for 12 months. By the end of the year, they would have paid 2.09 times the purchase price, according to interviews with customers and employees, and leasing agreements obtained by The Washington Post. Early repayment can lower the final cost, though the $79 fee is nonrefundable.

“It feels abusive and gross,” said a former assistant store manager who was there for the program’s launch. He spoke on the condition of anonymity because he is still on the company’s payroll. “You look at the terms and we are charging more than $2,000 for a $1,000 product.”

Matt Furman, a spokesman for the Minneapolis-based company, said the program provides a valuable service. Most consumers use it to buy computers, major appliances and mobile phones.

“If it were not for a lease-to-own program at our stores, many of these individuals would be making these purchases from rent-to-own retailers or using payday loans,” he said. “Our view is that these are clearly poor alternatives.”

Tens of thousands of Best Buy customers have used Progressive Leasing more than once in the past year, he said, noting it is “very common” for shoppers to pay off their purchases within 90 days — a threshold that confines the final cost to the $79 fee and purchase price.

Best Buy provided price comparisons of its products with those being offered by a popular lease-to-own company. An Acer Chromebook that sells for $199 at Best Buy, for example, would cost $495 over 12 months with Progressive Leasing. At Rent-A-Center, it could cost as much as $860, according to its website. That same purchase on the Best Buy Citibank credit card — which has a 27% interest rate and requires a monthly minimum payment of $29 — would cost $218 over eight months, according to Ted Rossman, an industry analyst at Creditcards.com.

Payday loans, meanwhile, typically have interest rates above 300%.

Best Buy is among a growing group of retailers partnering with outside firms to offer delayed-payment and lease-to-own programs to attract younger and lower-income shoppers who might not have bank accounts or good credit. Target, J. Crew, H&M and others are partnering with companies like Affirm, Afterpay, Sezzle and Klarna on such programs, which experts say have picked up in the past decade as new credit card accountability rules have made it more difficult for consumers — particularly those with spotty or no credit histories — to qualify for credit cards. Many of these programs don’t charge interest or fees right away, though that can change if consumers fall behind.

Progressive Leasing, they say, signals a new extreme in the way retailers do business. The program — which is owned by rent-to-own furniture chain Aaron’s — essentially buys the product and leases it to the customer. Best Buy gets paid right away, while Progressive Leasing takes on any risk of nonpayment. The program is offered at more than 30,000 stores by some of the country’s largest retailers, including Lowe’s, Big Lots and Kay Jewelers.

Last week, Aaron’s announced it would pay $175 million to the Federal Trade Commission to resolve an investigation into Progressive Leasing’s disclosure practices. The company said it also would “enhance certain compliance-related activities” related to its rent-to-own programs.

“It’s a very controversial model with very, very high fees,” said Rossman, of Creditcards.com. “But it’s becoming a huge business for retailers at a time when so many bricks-and-mortars are struggling.”

In 2018, Progressive Leasing reported $2 billion in revenue from 1.6 million leases. Its target market, the company says on its website, is the 35% of Americans with subprime credit scores. Nearly 40% of Americans don’t have $400 to cover emergency costs, according to the Federal Reserve.

Best Buy, which has about 980 U.S. stores, offers Progressive Leasing in 45 states and plans to make the program available online this year. (It is not offered in Wisconsin, New Jersey, Wyoming, Vermont and Minnesota, which have strict laws on rent-to-own contracts.) Analysts at UBS estimate the arrangement could generate much as $4 billion a year for Best Buy, which had $43.6 billion in revenue last year.

Barry said in an earnings call last year that the program was having “a positive impact” on sales, but did not provide specifics. Roughly 65% of consumers who used Progressive Leasing were new to Best Buy, or had not shopped at the company in the past year, she said.

Amanda Stevens, 40, recently used Progressive Leasing to buy a Ring doorbell, security camera and Nintendo Switch at Best Buy. She said she’s used the program before — to buy a refrigerator at Lowe’s and two fireplaces and a bed at Big Lots — and likes the ease of weekly payments that are automatically deducted from her bank account. This time, she plans to pay off her purchase using the money from her tax return.

“I like it,” said Stevens, a cashier at a big-box store in Farmington, Maine. “Who has that much cash on them? Certainly not I.”

On online forums and social media, Best Buy employees referred to the program as “regressive leasing” and shared memes comparing the retailer to payday loan sharks. Some employees said they had shared their concerns with management, but were told that the program was lucrative for the company.

“The way Best Buy wants us to push this program is troubling,” said a mobile specialist in Lansing, Michigan, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he feared reprisal. “You’re targeting a population that’s already down on their luck. Progressive Leasing is like saying, ‘Hey, you’re already in a bad situation. Let’s make it worse.’ ”

The program, employees said, builds on Best Buy’s Citibank branded credit card, which brings in one-quarter of total sales. The electronics giant has turned around its business in recent years, and on Thursday reported its 12th straight quarter of sales growth. Executives said continued demand for phones, computers and appliances had helped boost sales during what was a tough holiday season for many retailers.

Data show that card-holding consumers tend to buy more, and spend more frequently, than other shoppers. Progressive Leasing, employees said, is an attempt to re-create that model among lower-income shoppers who don’t qualify for the Citibank card.

“No employee wants to tell a customer they’ve been declined for financing,” Barry told investors in September. “Up until recently that was literally the only option we had. Now customers can hear about a second option to get the products and services they want from who they want, meaning a big win for all of us.”

Best Buy pointed to an example at a Victorville, California, store, where a couple recently came in after their refrigerator had broken down. They’d already been to two other stores, where their applications for credit cards were declined.They didn’t qualify for Best Buy’s store card, either. “But we were able to say, ‘We have a plan B for you,'” said Jessica Propernick, 34, a sales manager at the store. They were approved for Progressive Leasing and went home with a new fridge. “They were so thankful to have an option that they hugged the appliance supervisor.”

But some employees remained skeptical. “It can help some people but it’s very misleading for others,” said Joshua Howard, who until last month worked in the premium home entertainment department of a Best Buy store in Memphis. “I felt really bad offering it.”

It was difficult, he said, to “fully explain what the customer was getting themselves into,” even though he had firsthand knowledge of the program. Three years ago, he and his wife bought a $700 mattress at Mattress Firm using Progressive Leasing. They planned to pay it off within 90 days, but miscalculated. When he called on Day 91, the company told him there was nothing they could do: He ended up paying $1,400.

“Ever since then it’s left a bad taste in my mouth,” he said. “Very few people actually benefit from this.”

Now Scott is asking for a new trial, alleging that PNC hid key evidence from her for years, and possibly altered it before finally handing it over.

Nancy Erika Smith, Scott’s lawyer, said in an interview that she was putting away files after the trial when she saw in photos what looked like bank security cameras, then demanded the video. What PNC sent her shows a man waiting for Scott at a branch in New Jersey in 2013 and following her to a car — but key footage is absent.

“They produced the video they hid from the police, the prosecutors, us, the jury, the court,” Smith said. “And guess what’s missing? The five seconds of the assault.” Video reviewed by Bloomberg shows the surveillance footage skips several seconds just after the man follows Scott to a car.

“It is shocking — never seen anything like it in my 40 years as a lawyer,” Smith said.

PNC will “vigorously oppose” Scott’s motion for a new trial, according to Marcey Zwiebel, a spokesperson for the Pittsburgh-based bank.

“PNC did not deliberately hide the video from plaintiff,” Zwiebel said. “It is also not true that the video was altered to omit an assault.” She said she couldn’t immediately address the gap in the video, but that the footage “reflects all activity involving plaintiff and the customer.”

Scott has said she was traumatized by the encounter in Glen Ridge, and that the bank had failed to properly protect her. The $2.4 million she won was for compensatory damages, and she’s now asking for a new trial for punitive damages.

The man, Patrick Pignatello, died soon after the alleged assault. He owned a construction company, according to an obituary, and was known around town as “Mr. Glen Ridge.”

Deutsche Bank’s Michael Linenberg cut his recommendation to hold from buy on six carriers, citing the rising risk that the outbreak “will disrupt travel patterns beyond China.” Daniel McKenzie of Buckingham Research said industry stocks could drop another 15% to 20% and “potentially more, depending on the severity of the economic fallout” from the virus.

“If the collapse in demand to Asia is a sign of things to come in other geographic entities, the stocks are not even close to discounting the potential demand fallout from a broader spread,” McKenzie said in a Thursday report. He downgraded seven U.S. airline stocks, including American Airlines and United Airlines, to hold from buy.

The sell-off reflects increasing fear that the coronavirus will upend U.S. airlines’ long profit bonanza over much of the last decade, which had followed a wave of industry consolidation. While the big carriers have already suspended flights to China, they have been banking on continued strength at home and in other overseas markets.

A Standard & Poor’s index of the five largest U.S. airlines tumbled 2.5% at 11:20 a.m. in New York to the lowest intraday level in more than three years. In Europe, Air France-KLM, Deutsche Lufthansa and British Airways owner IAG also posted steep declines.

McKenzie said his downgrades were behind the curve, as Buckingham had mistakenly anticipated that the virus would be contained. Those hopes took a blow this week by warnings from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and others.

“Over the past two days, the CDC and other experts have warned that containment is unlikely, which creates a far more challenging demand picture,” McKenzie said.

If the collapse of demand in Asia extends to the more lucrative European and domestic markets, the industry may face a “financial crisis-type or 9/11-type demand and earnings shock,” he said. The possible return this year of Boeing Co.’s grounded 737 Max aircraft could add additional seats and potentially crimp airfares, further threatening airline profits.

Even domestic-focused airlines are making adjustments. JetBlue Airways Corp. said Wednesday that it would stop charging ticket change and cancel fees through March 11 to give customers “some peace of mind” about their plans if the virus situation changes. Such measures are likely to help support ongoing sales as coronavirus dominates news headlines.

Deutsche Bank’s Linenberg lowered his rating to hold from buy on JetBlue, Delta Air Lines, Alaska Air Group and Spirit Airlines, as well as on American and United.

He said he was concerned that the crisis will start to hurt peak travel periods such as spring break, Easter travel and early summer.

In addition, the growing number of corporate travel restrictions was “disconcerting,” he said, as business travelers tend to be “demand-inelastic and represent one of the industry’s most lucrative revenue streams.”

These clients were encouraged to buy a risky version of an exchange-traded fund, known as an ETF, according to the SEC’s cease-and-desist order. These “single-inverse ETFs” use complex financial engineering to deliver big profits when stocks fall.

But these types of ETFs can lead to devastating losses when held for more than a day and are traditionally recommended only for sophisticated investors.

Wells Fargo recommended that some clients hold them for “months or years” even though they had “moderate or conservative risk tolerances,” according to the SEC settlement. “Some of these clients had little or no relevant investing experience.”

Wells Fargo said in a statement that it will no longer sell “single-inverse ETFs” in its “full-service brokerage” but that customers could still buy them from other providers.

The $35 million penalty will be distributed to Wells Fargo investors who were harmed, the SEC said.

Wells Fargo was sanctioned by the industry’s self-regulator, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, in 2009 for sales practices around these ETFs, but the conduct continued until 2019, according to the SEC. “Wells Fargo’s policies and procedures relating to single-inverse ETFs . . . were not reasonably designed to prevent and detect unsuitable recommendations of these complex products,” the SEC said.

This comes as Wells Fargo struggles to repair its image after admitting to consumer abuses. Last week, it reached a $3 billion settlement with the Justice Department and the SEC to settle charges that its aggressive sales goals led to widespread consumer abuses, including millions of accounts opened without customers’ consent.

First-quarter earnings will drop about 10%, the company predicted Thursday. AB InBev also said last year was disappointing. Chief Executive Officer Carlos Brito’s bonus was curtailed after the biggest jump in raw material costs in a decade eroded profit growth. The stock fell as much as 8.2%, approaching an eight-year low.

For a company that says its main product brings people together, the coronavirus presents a particular problem as consumers in China avoid going out in public. Shipments had already started to slow in that market at the end of last year, leading the brewer to lower its guidance. While AB InBev is betting on a rebound in the later part of this year, the lower end of the 2020 forecast of 2% to 5% would be the weakest growth in four years.

The Budweiser maker has reopened over half of its 33 breweries in China and has permission from the government to restart the remainder of them, except for a facility in Wuhan, the epicenter of the disease outbreak.

Brito told Bloomberg that he got a bonus in the first half but not in the second as the company amended its usual practice of paying a bonus on an annual basis. It’s a rare move for the brewer, which cut bonuses for its top management in 2017 after a bad year.

“I’m never worried about the share price, I’m focused on our business,” the CEO said, speaking in a phone interview. “What I tell our people is this: Guys, we have an amazing talent pool and an amazing set of brands. Sometimes there is a lag, but if the business performs, the share price will follow.”

The company was one of the first to reopen its office in Shanghai, with government officials attending the event. AB InBev has shipped in about 1 million hygienic masks that it’s distributing to employees and local communities.

The brewer is reallocating the distribution of its beers from nightlife venues, its most profitable points of sale in China, to other avenues of sale such as e-commerce.

Profit fell 5.5% on an adjusted basis before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization in the fourth quarter, the Leuven, Belgium-based brewer said Thursday. Analysts expected a drop of 1.9%.

The disease outbreak has wiped about $170 million off AB InBev’s earnings in China in January and February and $285 million off revenue.

AB InBev sold a stake in its Asia-Pacific unit Budweiser Brewing in September to help reduce debt and to serve as a vehicle for mergers and acquisitions.

AB InBev is known in the consumer-goods industry for giving outsize responsibility to young employees and generously rewarding them if they meet stringent sales growth and profitability targets. It’s given AB InBev some of the most impressive margins in the brewing industry. Still, the brewer is struggling to sell old-line brands such as Budweiser and Bud Light amid the growth in craft beer and hard seltzers.

A statement from the company said it had overcome  the technical problems in providing continuity of services to its customers. The migration and service restoration were accomplished  on February 20,  Meanwhile, the company completed the deorbiting of Thaicom 5 on February  20 at 4.52 pm (local time).

On December 17,  Thaicom 5 experienced a technical issue causing limitations to monitoring of its  status.  The company  performed several unsuccessful attempts to tackle the problem, leading to the suggestion of  deorbiting  the  satellite from its  manufacturer.

Thaicom 5 had provided reliable satellite communication services for 14 years since its launched in May 2006.

The company would like to thank the Ministry of Digital Economy and Society (MDES) and the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) for their prudent decision to support and approve of the relevant process, according to the statement .