When the coronavirus vaccines were rolled out late last year, there was a palpable sense of excitement. People started browsing travel sites and airlines became optimistic about flying again. Ryanair Holdings Plc even launched a “Jab & Go” campaign alongside images of over-20s on vacation with a drink in hand.
It doesn’t work like that.
For one thing, it’s not clear that the vaccines will actually stop travelers from spreading the disease, even if they are less likely to contract the disease themselves. Nor have the shots been proven against the more contagious mutant strains that have spooked governments from Australia to the UK to close rather than open borders. An ambitious push from carriers for digital health passports to replace the mandatory quarantines killing travel demand is also fraught with challenges and has yet to win the World Health Organization.
This bleak reality has pushed expectations of a meaningful recovery in global travel to 2022. That may be too late to save the many airlines with just a few months of cash left. And the delay threatens to kill the careers of hundreds of thousands of pilots, flight crew and airport workers who have been out of work for nearly a year. Rather than a return to global connectivity – one of the economic wonders of the jet age – long-term international isolation seems inevitable.
“It’s very important for people to understand that all we know about the vaccines at this point is that they reduce the risk of serious disease very effectively,” said Margaret Harris, a WHO spokesman in Geneva. “We have not yet seen any evidence indicating whether or not they will stop shipping.”
To be sure, it’s possible that a travel renewal will happen on its own – without the need for vaccine passports. As jabs begin to lower infection and death rates, governments can gain enough confidence to roll back quarantines and other border barriers and rely more on passengers’ Covid-19 pre-flight tests.
For example, the United Arab Emirates has largely abolished entry restrictions, except for the need for a negative test. While UK regulators have banned Ryanair’s “Jab & Go” ad as misleading, Michael O’Leary, chief of the discount airline, still expects nearly the entire European population to be vaccinated by the end of September. “That’s where we are released from these restrictions,” he said. “Short-distance travel will recover strongly and quickly.”
But for now, governments generally remain skittish about welcoming international visitors, and change the rules at the slightest trouble. Witness Australia, which closed its borders with New Zealand last month after New Zealand reported a COVID-19 case in the community.
New Zealand and Australia, which have taken a successful approach to eliminating the virus, have both said their borders will not fully open this year. Meanwhile, travel bubbles, as suggested between the Asian financial centers of Singapore and Hong Kong, should not yet take hold. France tightened rules for international travel on Sunday as Canada prepares to impose tougher quarantine measures.
“Air traffic and aviation are really way behind on the government’s priority list,” said Phil Seymour, president and chief of advisory services at UK-based aviation services company IBA Group Ltd. “It will be a long breath.”
The pace of vaccine roll-out is another sticking point.
While vaccinations have improved in the US – the world’s largest air travel market before the virus hit – vaccination programs have been far from the panacea for aviation. In some places, they’re just one more thing people can argue about. Vaccinationalism in Europe has been resolved in an argument over supply and who should be protected first. The region is also divided on whether a jab should be a ticket for unlimited travel.
It all means that a passenger air traffic recovery “is likely just before 2022,” said Joshua Ng, Singapore director at Alton Aviation Consultancy. It is possible that long-distance travel will not resume until 2023 or 2024, he predicts. The International Air Transport Association said this week that in the worst-case scenario, passenger traffic could only improve by 13% this year. The official forecast for a 50% recovery was published in December.
American Airlines Group Inc. warned 13,000 workers on Wednesday that they could be fired, many of them for the second time in six months.
By the end of 2020, “we were fully convinced that we would be looking at a summer schedule where we would operate all of our planes and require the full strength of our team,” Chief Executive Officer Doug Parker and President Robert Isom told workers . “Unfortunately that is no longer the case.
The lack of progress is evident in the air. According to OAG Aviation Worldwide Ltd. worldwide commercial flights have fallen to less than half the pre-pandemic level since February 1. Scheduled services in key markets, including the UK, Brazil and Spain, are still declining, the data shows.
Quarantines that lock up passengers on arrival for weeks remain the great enemy of a true travel resurgence. A better alternative, according to IATA, is a digital travel pass to store the vaccination and testing history of passengers, which can remove restrictions. Many of the world’s largest airlines have rolled out apps from IATA and others, including Singapore Airlines Ltd., Emirates and British Airways.
“We need to work on as many options as possible,” said Richard Treeves, British Airways Head of Business Resilience. “We hope for integration with those apps and common standards.”
But even the IATA recognizes that there is no guarantee that every state will apply its Travel Pass right away, if at all. There is currently no consensus on vaccine passports within the 27 member states of the European Union, with tourism-dependent countries such as Greece and Portugal supporting the idea and pushing back larger members, including France.
“We’re going to be lacking in harmony at first,” Nick Careen, IATA’s senior vice president for passenger affairs, said at a briefing last month. “None of it is ideal.”
The airline group has called on WHO to determine that it is safe for inoculated people to fly without quarantine, in an effort to bolster the case for Travel Pass. But the global health body remains unmoved.
“At this point, all we can say is yes, you were vaccinated with this vaccine on this date and you had your booster – if it’s a two-course vaccine – on this date,” said Harris of the WHO. “We are working very hard to get a secure electronic system so that people have that information. But at this point, that’s all it is. It’s a record. “
A vaccine passport also would not be able to demonstrate the quality or durability of any protective immunity obtained by inoculation or natural infection with a virus, Harris said.
The idea that your natural immunity should be protective and that you could somehow use this to say ‘I’m good at traveling’ is completely out.