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Feature - Aviation
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Aviation takes flight
As the world reopens its borders in a bid to rebuild tourism, airlines across the region are set for a resurgence while still grappling with the global economic slump
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Few global industries have been hit as hard as the airline sector in the wake of the pandemic. The strict curbs on travel, which first emerged in March 2020, left fleets of planes grounded for weeks, causing air passenger traffic to plummet to unprecedented depths. In a decade where the oil price slump and political instability left many carriers strapped for cash, the COVID-19 wave deepened the crisis, threatening the viability of many players within the industry. As the virus continued its relentless march across the planet, aviation came to a standstill. Following widespread national lockdowns, from March to April 2020, international traffic fell by 98 percent from 2019 levels while domestic travel plummeted by 87 percent. Although
the summer of 2020 reported a moderate rebound, the recovery was short-lived and confirmed what many travel experts long feared – a slow return to peak levels. In January 2021, the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) revealed that seating capacity fell by around 50 percent in 2020, which saw just 1.8 billion passengers taking flights during the year, compared with around 4.5 billion in 2019. This resulted in staggering financial losses to the industry amounting to around US$370 billion. Airports and air navigation service providers lost a further US$115 billion and US$13 billion, respectively. Overall, there was a 50 percent drop in domestic passenger traffic globally, while international traffic fell by 74 percent worldwide.
5/17/21 12:55 AM
