"This is aviation's darkest hour and it is difficult to see a sunrise ahead."

Those were the somber words of the International Air Transport Association's CEO, Alexandre de Juniac, who previously said the current airline industry crisis due to COVID-19 is far worse and more widespread than in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

It isn't just the aviation industry that is collapsing, however, as business activity across the world has plummeted to record lows, as factories, shops and restaurants are forced to shut under stringent lockdown measures. You can read more about IHS Markit's monthly measure of services and manufacturing below. 

Speaking of businesses being forced to stop manufacturing, Mexico's Grupo Modelo said it is halting the production of its famous Corona beer after its business activities were declared non-essential under new government measures. I bet the company is hoping this means its beer will stop being the punchline of jokes because of its unfortunate name.

Finally, while businesses across Europe are struggling because lockdowns have forced them to close, cafes and restaurants in Sweden are still open as the country follows a different path. Why is this? Well, you can watch our video below to find out. 

While you're there, don't forget to scroll down a little more to read our interview with the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry's CEO, Richard Burge, who explains the impact of COVID-19 on small businesses.

Enjoy reading,

Arij Limam

Digital correspondent

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International airline seat capacity has dropped by almost 80 percent from a year ago and half the world's airplanes are in storage, according to new figures, and the IATA is calling this "the biggest crisis the industry has ever faced." Data firm OAG said that several years of aviation industry growth had been lost and that it could take until 2022 or 2023 before the volume of fliers returns to the levels expected for 2020. American airlines is cutting nearly 90 percent of its international flights in April and May. While in Europe, budget carrier Ryanair is currently operating 99 percent fewer daily flights. 

In Asia, Hong Kong's Cathay Pacific Airways will also make further cuts to passenger capacity because of extremely low demand. On one day this week, the major airline carried only 582 passengers compared with 100,000 customers previously on a normal day. The carrier will keep a skeleton network in April of just two weekly flights to four long-haul destinations and three weekly regional flights, according to an internal memo.

Because of these unprecedented figures, governments around the world are scrambling to prop up major airlines at risk of bankruptcy. Air France-KLM is in talks with banks to receive billions of euros in loans guaranteed by both the French and Dutch governments, sources told Reuters. Elsewhere, Norwegian Air and SAS have received pledges of state support, while Lufthansa is poised to receive billions in aid.

Euro area business activity collapsed last month at an unprecedented scale as attempts to contain the coronavirus pandemic pushed governments across Europe to shut down huge parts of their economies, from shops to factories to restaurants, a survey showed on Friday. IHS Markit said its monthly measure of services and manufacturing, points to an annualized economic contraction of about 10 percent, with worse to come. Markit's final composite PMI plummeted to a record low of 29.7 in March, far below the 50 mark that separates growth from contraction. Almost every country in the survey had a record-low reading. 

In the U.S., treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin said he was pressing ahead with the Friday launch of a $349 billion coronavirus rescue loan program for small businesses, after conceding to bank demands to fix aspects of the program that they said could cause participating lenders legal and financial risks. Bank Morgan Stanley said the U.S. economy will shrink 5.5 percent in 2020, the steepest drop since 1946.

Google has released the largest public data set available on location data to show if people are abiding by coronavirus lockdown measures. The reports for 131 countries show whether visits to shops, parks and workplaces dropped in March, in line with government measures around the world to stop the spread of the coronavirus. 

China's commerce ministry said it will minimize the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on foreign investment into the country and encourage further investment of foreign capital into various industries including technology. The ministry said in a statement that it will revise the so-called "negative list" to ease the foreign investment restrictions in place and closely monitor the progress of key foreign investment projects in the country.

The World Bank on Thursday approved the first steps in a plan to roll out $160 billion in emergency aid over 15 months to help countries deal with the impact of the global coronavirus pandemic. The board of the Washington-based development lender approved the first set of fast-track crisis projects, with an initial $1.9 billion going to 25 countries and operations moving forward in another 40 nations.

U.S. home rental company Airbnb lowered its internal valuation by 16 percent to $26 billion, as it grapples with booking cancellations due to the global spread of the coronavirus pandemic, a source told Reuters. The company is also in discussions with bankers to extend an existing $1 billion debt facility.

Japanese ruling party executive Fumio Kishida said on Friday he has agreed with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to offer 300,000 yen ($2,763) in cash payments per household that suffers a certain degree of income decline from the coronavirus pandemic.

The company behind Mexico's Corona beer, which has been the punchline of jokes during the coronavirus crisis because of its unfortunate name, said on Thursday it will temporarily stop brewing the beer and other brands exported to 180 countries after its business activities were declared non-essential.

As many European countries struggle under a full-scale lockdown, Sweden is among the few nations that haven't imposed these measures. Currently, there are nearly 5,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the country, with 239 deaths, well behind the worst-hit countries in Europe. But there are fears the situation could deteriorate. So why has Sweden taken this approach?

With one-in-four small business in the UK under threat because of COVID-19, London Chamber of Commerce and Industry CEO Richard Burge spoke to CGTN Europe about the issue.

What impact are coronavirus containment measures having on small businesses in the UK?

Well, a lot of businesses in Britain – indeed anywhere in the world – if you're a small business, you operate on earning enough money to pay your bills. You're not quite down to money-in money-out in one month, but you've probably only got three or four months' worth of reserves, and if you've got more than that, you've invested it in your company to help it grow. So, when you have a crisis that literally takes away all your income, then you have a problem, you have costs still going up and you have nothing to pay it with.

So, how crucial will the next few weeks be for the survival of small- and medium-sized firms, those supposed engines of economic growth?

Well, it's going to be pretty vital by 25 April, because that's the next big pay round. That's when they've got to pay people, that's when they're meant to submit their PAYE and all that and the government's rents are due. So we are not talking about a month, we're talking about weeks and days in the case of many.

There doesn't seem to be enough clarity on how businesses can get help. What would you like to see from the banks in particular?

Well, I think from the banks, what we want to see is a lot more flexibility and a lot more solidarity with the national enterprise of getting out of COVID-19. I find it incredible that we've got banks debating whether they're going to pay dividends and whether their executives should be based in Britain or somewhere else in order to receive their bonuses. 

So we want them to be more flexible. We want them to stop taking advantage of the situation as some are, offering ludicrous interest rates and demanding personal securities on an unprecedented scale. We've also got some banks where their clients have been very good, they've never had a debt with the bank, they've always been in credit, and as a result, they don't have a debt record, and so the banks certainly have got no record of how good a payer you are when you are in debt.

The government, though, says it has lifelines in place, but there have been some problems, haven't there, with companies accessing those funds?

Well, in the end, because the lifelines go through the banks, that's how they get access to the loans. They need to borrow money from the banks, not just to access the special loans the government's made available for them, but they also need to be able to access the banks because they're the people who provide them with the bridging money until they can reclaim the furlough money. So, if they put all their staff on furlough, they still have to fund that until the government opens the gateway, which could be weeks away. So they still need the banks to provide bridging loans and those are not forthcoming.

If nothing changes, how far-reaching could the consequences be, I expect we're talking large-scale bankruptcies?

Well, we're probably talking about bankruptcies. We're also talking about companies just literally going out of business because most small businesses don't want a bankruptcy, because that means you don't pay your bills and you don't pay your staff off properly. I think we'll find companies actually just making staff redundant. 

So even though they've got access to the furlough money, they'll say: 'It doesn't matter, it's still because we can't get access to loans on a reasonable rate, we can't build this up, we will close the company and we will make the staff redundant.' We're looking in the next few weeks at maybe a quarter of SMEs, from what this survey shows, being in a position of having to seriously consider that.

As you've read further up, European business activity collapsed in March due to lockdown measures to contain the coronavirus in most EU countries. But in February 2020 – the month before these measures were implemented – seasonally adjusted volume of retail trade increased by 0.8 percent in the EU, and by 0.9 percent in the euro area, compared with January 2020. See our graph below showing newly published Eurostat figures for more.