"This is off the rails, unprecedented. The economy's been flattened."” 

That was the reaction of Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics, to news the U.S. economy has shrunk by nearly five percent in the first three months of 2020. It's the deepest downturn in the world's biggest economy – and leading oil producer – since the 2008 Global Financial Crisis. 

A worrying sign for Washington D.C. will be the doubling losses at car maker Ford, with the motor industry also a focal point for the impending "Great Recession." Today's graph looks at U.S. oil supply – and the storage facility in Oklahoma causing issues for the North American crude price. 

In Europe, British Airways has revealed the scale of redundancies it has planned, with parent company IAG filing a 13 percent drop in revenues. 

Sticking with the airline industry, CGTN Europe spoke to the director-general and CEO of IATA, the air industry body. You can read Alexandre de Juniac's thoughts on the sector's recovery from the COVID-19 lockdown below. 

Happy reading, 

Patrick Atack

Digital business correspondent 

P.S. Did you know we send this briefing by email, too? You can sign up to receive it here.

U.S. car giant Ford has warned its second-quarter losses are likely to be more than double the $2 billion it recorded in the first quarter of 2020. CEO Jim Hackett said the Detroit-based firm expects a $5 billion loss in Q2, but said the company has enough in reserve to survive.

British Airways said it will make as many as a quarter of its staff redundant as the airline continues to suffer amid the coronavirus pandemic. After the first quarter of 2020, IAG which owns BA, Iberia, Aer Lingus, and Vueling, reported a 13 percent drop in revenues and operating profits fell by $580 million.

The UK's environment minister, George Eustice, said "a significant number of British people" are needed to pick crops from the nation's farms as there are only 10,000 of the usual 30,000 immigrant fruit and vegetable pickers currently in the UK.

The Hungarian Competition Authority has fined online travel agent Booking.com $6.6 million for "unfair business practices." The ruling said adverts for free cancellations "as well as... exerting aggressive psychological pressure to facilitate faster bookings," prompted the 2018 investigation. Booking.com said: "Everything on our website... is intended to help customers."

Zoom has signed an agreement with Oracle Corp for use of its cloud computing technology. The video conferencing firm's user numbers have sky-rocket during the pandemic, and the partnership is aimed at easing pressure on Zoom and giving Oracle market exposure.

The international tea industry is facing shortages as the major producing nations restrict movement. The chairman of India's Tea Board said 2020 exports could be down by nine percent. But as production drops, there is no sign demand will follow, with Russian tea stakeholders reporting a boost in consumption.

U.S. crude oil prices have recovered slightly on the news that supplies have not grown quite as quickly as expected. After falling 27 percent on Monday and Tuesday, the WTI futures price has regained nearly 13 percent at the time of writing.

The German Institute for Economic Research, or DIW Berlin, has forecast the country's economy will shrink by six percent by the end of 2020. Although Europe's biggest economy contracted by two percent in the first quarter, the long delay before normality resumes means a further 10 percent is likely to be lost before July.

British retailers have cut non-food prices by the biggest swing in nearly 15 years. Through April, prices on the UK high street have been down 3.7 percent compared with the same time last year, which is the biggest drop since 2006.

Volvo Car Group, the Swedish company owned by China's Geely Holding, said it will cut 1,300 staff described as "white-collar." The auto maker employs 24,000 people in Sweden and said the exact number and nature of the cuts would be decided amid negotiations with unions over the next few months. 

CGTN Europe's new series, The Pandemic Playbook, is launched today. We look at the strategies used to combat COVID-19 and save lives around the world.

CGTN Europe spoke to Alexandre de Juniac, the CEO of the International Air Transport Association, about why airlines should be bailed out by governments around the world – and how flying in a post-lockdown world might look, and how much it might cost. 

Why do you dislike governments adding environmental clauses to bailout agreements? 

Well, we have committed to be carbon neutral starting in 2020 and to reduce our problem CO2 emission by half compared with 2005 levels in 2050. These commitments remain, and this crisis will not divert this industry [from] sticking to it with environmental commitments. But what we say to governments is: 'Do not add additional constraints to your financial support packages, to your bailout measures,' because we are not in a position to have more constraints, more difficulties. 

We are struggling for survival. We are really in a desperate situation, struggling for survival. And so we say, no additional constraint. 

The air is much cleaner. Nature is happy. Should we want the airline industry to recover to where it was? Would it not be an opportunity to cut down on flying?

That is, of course, the public opinion. All the passengers will vote with their feet. Our main conviction is that, you know, we participate in a very strong and a very deep and important freedom, which is a freedom to go wherever you like, whenever you want. 

It's the business of freedom. So we are pretty optimistic about, you know, the will of billions of people to continue to travel by air. 

Now, every single industry needs government support at this point. Why should the aviation and airline industry get government bailouts? 

First of all, we have to be among the first to have been hit, and we have been probably among those who have been the most severely hit. 

Secondly, airlines are key for economic development, but also a key element for a quick and strong recovery. Without strong airlines, the recovery will be slower and much, much, weaker.  

IATA has called for a coordinated and integrated response when it comes to post-coronavirus social distancing at airports and on airplanes as well. Who should be responsible for drafting these new guidelines and regulations? 

You know, what we say is three things. Cooperation between governments, because you can unilaterally close your borders and put a ban on, or restrict, travel. But you cannot unilaterally lift these measures. It has to be done in a cooperative, declarative manner. 

Secondly, it has to be harmonized between countries. No differences because, otherwise, it would be unmanageable. It would be a nightmare not only for us. 

But also for passengers, there will be complete disorder, risk-taking, because you don't know exactly what process you are going to face at the departure, at your arrival. So we are advocating in favor of a complete harmonization.  

Ryanair, for example, has warned that, with these social distancing measures, a lot of the low-cost airlines could actually go bankrupt because they cannot afford it. They already operate on very low margins. So for the low-cost airlines, this could be devastating. What is your point of view? 

If you neutralize the center seat on each part of the aircraft, you neutralize more than a third of the seats and you do not make any money. That's impossible economically to operate aircraft. 

Or you have to increase fares. So it means that everything we have done for decades, which is opening air travel to everybody, would die. And we cannot accept that. 

So we have to find the appropriate process to guarantee it is safe to fly, that you will not be contaminated. And our first statistics show that onboard there are very few contamination cases, and that we can [implement] measures to protect passengers from any contamination onboard. So I think we can find the right compromise. 

For the past two weeks, the U.S. oil price has gone from the business pages to headline news.

The West Texas Intermediate futures price has crashed at least twice, but why?

Basically it's because the main U.S. crude oil storage facility is filling up fast – and without somewhere to store the product, fewer traders are buying U.S. oil.

This graphic shows how the facility in Oklahoma has risen from its usual levels of around 45 percent of working capacity to more than 75 percent last week.