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Covid-19: No quick recovery in sight for global aviation industry, says report
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The Economist11:46, Jul 08 2021
Ramy Kabalan/Unsplash
Although the world’s listed airlines have collectively just about recovered from the Covid-induced stockmarket rout, forecasters reckon that air travel will return to levels from 2019 only by 2024. (File photo)
The Covid-19 pandemic, with its lockdowns and travel bans, clobbered the world’s airlines. Revenues per passenger-kilometre, the industry’s common measure of performance, plummeted by 66 per cent in 2020, compared with 2019. The International Air Transport Association (IATA), an industry body, expects them to remain 57 per cent below pre-pandemic levels this year. Although the world’s listed airlines have collectively just about recovered from the US$200 billion (NZ$285bn) Covid-induced stockmarket rout, forecasters reckon that air travel will return to levels from 2019 only by 2024.
THE PANDEMIC, with its lockdowns and travel bans, clobbered the world’s airlines. Revenues per passenger-kilometre, the industry’s common measure of performance, plummeted by 66% in 2020, compared with 2019. The International Air Transport Association (IATA), an industry body, expects them to remain 57% below pre-pandemic levels this year. Although the world’s listed airlines have collectively just about recovered from the $200bn covid-induced stockmarket rout (see chart 1), forecasters reckon that air travel will return to levels from 2019 only by 2024. The companies’ total annual losses may hit $48bn in 2021, on top of $126bn in 2020. Many have been torching cash as fast as their aeroplanes burn jet fuel. Plenty survived only thanks to government bail-outs.
Economy passengers taking one of the few international flights still running have had an unusually pleasant experience of late. Exasperated cabin crew battling to close overhead lockers full to bursting with wheelie-bags, duty-free booze and laptop cases have been replaced by masked attendants presiding over planes two-thirds full at best and often with only a handful of passengers. Some report sleeping across empty rows of seats. The collapse of passenger numbers and revenues will damage the industry. Yet previous disruptions have shaken up the airlines to the benefit of the flying public. It could happen again. The advantages of the previous big interruption to air travel, the second world war, are debatable. The experience of servicemen crammed into uncomfortably spartan transport aircraft, argues Eric Zuelow in his book,
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