Aircraft will be sealed and stored at the Asia Pacific Aircraft Storage Facility in Alice Springs, Australia, in October 2020.
Photographer: David Gray / Bloomberg
Photographer: David Gray / Bloomberg
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 has 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 are the shots proven against the more contagious mutated tribes 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 that are reducing travel demand is also full of challenges and must World Health Organisation.
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 pilots, flight crew and airport personnel who have been out of work for almost 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 your risk of serious disease very effectively,” said Margaret Harris, a WHO spokesperson in Geneva. “We have not yet seen any evidence indicating whether or not they will stop shipping.”
Read more: Yay Vaccines, But Here’s Why Covid Will Never Go Away
To be sure, a travel renewal might happen on its own – without the need for vaccine passports. Should jabs begin to lower infection and death rates, governments could 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 the point where we are released from these restrictions,” he said. “Short-distance travel will recover strongly and quickly.”
An international terminal at John F. Kennedy Airport on January 25. Commercial flights worldwide from February 1 wallowed at less than half the pre-pandemic level.
Photographer: Spencer Platt / Getty Images
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 one successful approach aimed at eliminating the virus, both have 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 up the rules for international travel on Sunday, while Canada is prepare to impose stricter quarantine measures.
“Aviation and aviation are really well below 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. Vaccine nationalism 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.
Read more: Can You Get Covid Twice? What Re-infection Cases Mean: QuickTake
It all means a recovery in passenger air traffic “is likely just before 2022,” said Joshua Ng, Singapore director at Alton Aviation Consultancy. Long-distance travel may not resume until 2023 or 2024, he predicts. The International Air Transport Association said this week that in the worst case, passenger traffic can only improve by 13% this year. The official forecast for a 50% recovery was published in December.
Travelers arriving at Ben-Gurion International Airport in Israel will be tested on Covid-19 on January 24.
Photographer: Jack Guez / AFP.Getty Images
American Airlines Group Inc. warned 13,000 employees on Wednesday laid off, many of them for the second time in six months.
At the end of 2020, “we were fully convinced that we would be looking at a summer schedule where we would fly all our planes and require the full strength of our team,” said Chief Executive Officer Doug Parker and President Robert Isom. workers. “Unfortunately that is no longer the case.”
The lack of progress is evident in the air. Commercial flights worldwide from Feb. 1 wallowed at less than half at the pre-pandemic level OAG Aviation Worldwide Ltd. Scheduled services in key markets, including the UK, Brazil and Spain, are still declining, the data shows.
Sustained flight descent
Services in the major markets remain well below pre-pandemic levels
Source: OAG
Quarantines that lock up passengers on arrival for weeks remain the great enemy of a true travel resurgence. A better alternative, said IATA, is a digital Travel Pass to store passengers’ vaccine and test history, allowing to override 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 have to work on as many options as possible,” he 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.”
Multiple passports
The number of digital vaccine trackers has skyrocketed
Source: Bloomberg
The aviation group has called on the WHO to establish 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 of the question.”
– Assisted by Justin Bachman, Mary Schlangenstein and Siddharth Vikram Philip
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