Battling the COVID-19 crisis is the world’s top priority and airlines are committed to the fight. International Aviation Transport Association (IATA) are partnering with governments and other stakeholders to deliver vaccines under strict time and temperature standards. They are developing a digital app to make travel in the post-Covid world easier and quicker. Also IATA have implemented recommendations from the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) and the World Health Organisation (WHO) throughout the travel process to keep passengers and crew safe.
The freedom to travel is important. Connecting the world by air will provide vital stability for tens of millions of people whose jobs have been lost or remain at risk from the pandemic. It will bring relief to social and mental toll caused by loss of income, lockdowns and family separations. And it will enable human connections that we all value.
If everyone works together – the air transport sector, governments and health experts - we can get the world flying again.
The final critical element to a safe and successful restart is continued government financial and regulatory support, regulatory alleviation and cost reduction across the value chain. The approximately $239 billion in financial support provided by governments has been a lifeline for many airlines. Cash burn is expected to hit $81 billion in 2021, adding to the $149 billion in 2020, and demand is not expected to recover to 2019 levels until at least 2023.
“A safe re-start will need careful planning and coordination by governments and industry. There is now encouraging evidence that vaccines are highly effective in reducing infection and transmission of the virus and its variants. And testing can provide access to quarantine-free travel for non-vaccinated passengers. But we face immense challenges due to the patchwork of rules applied around the world. Only governments can sort this out with global standards based on data. The aviation is ready to help, provided governments set benchmarks against which we can plan for restart,” said IATA Director General Willie Walsh.
Main targets to be achieved for reconnection
- Vaccinations
- Vaccine harmonization
- Testing
- Trusted testing framework
- Crew
- Travel Pass
- Bio-Safety during the flight
Continued support to stabilize the industry will be needed, particularly to retain critical skills. This support must not further inflate the industry’s debt burden which has increased by over 50% to $651 billion.
Airlines have drastically cut costs but revenues have fallen faster. This continues to put aviation jobs at risk.
The industry must live within the means of drastically reduced revenues. In particular, it is imperative that airports and air navigation service providers avoid cost increases to fill gaps in budgets that are dependent on pre-crisis traffic levels. And, regulatory alleviations, including slot allocation waivers (80-20 “use it or lose it” rule), must be continued until a normalization is achieved.
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