It is the sector most affected by the pandemic and also the one called for a great change (for the good of the planet). Current situation and prospects for how air travel will be in the future
With the COVID-19, airlines are experiencing the worst crisis in their history. This is not the only category in difficulty, of course, but it is by far one of the most tried together with the entire travel and tourism sector. Only in Europe, this year, has it been lost 57% of flights compared to 2019 and IATA – the organization that brings together almost all the airlines in the world – expects to close 2020 with 419 billion dollars less in revenue. Almost all companies have announced cuts and layoffs: about half of the jobs are at risk.
It will be said: even after the attack on the Twin Towers in 2001 or during the Sars epidemic of 2003 or with the economic crisis of 2008, air traffic had decreased sharply, only to quickly return to previous levels (indeed: more before). This time, however, there are many more factors at stake.
First it is the first time that two problems substantial add up: people don't fly either because they are afraid (yesterday of the attacks, today of the contagion), and because due to the economic crisis caused by the pandemic it has less money available, and travel is among the most expendable items.
A new hope, amidst a thousand difficulties
The announcement of the possible effectiveness of the Covid vaccine by the pharmaceutical company Pfizer, however, immediately flew the airlines on the stock exchange: this will be enough to raise them even live?
Estimates say that we will return to travel the skies as before only from 2023, if not even from 2024 or 2025. In China this is already being done, but the bulk concerns domestic traffic and not international traffic, which instead remains at stake. Also for this reason, some argue that low cost airlines, which operate more on the short haul, will better resist the crisis. But that's not necessarily the case.
Indeed, not only health and economic security will affect the possible recovery. The environmental issue and the new habits consolidated in these months of forced closure will also weigh heavily. For example yes they will reduce business trips and business trips, because many more companies will encourage meetings and interviews in conference call instead of flying their employees from one part of the country or the world to another. And, on some lines, the passengers of the business class they represent 12-15% of the total capacity (about 75 percent of the profit), as noted by the head of the analysis company Airline Data, Jeff Pelletier, in an article also taken up by the magazine "Internazionale". Not a small detail, here.
Ancient problems
In addition there is the environmental challenge to play a primary role. Even before Covid, companies were observed special since almost one of the 43 billion CO2 produced every year by human activities comes from aviation and that a round trip intercontinental flight is enough to produce as much carbon dioxide as one person in a year in Madagascar. And this despite the efforts that many airlines have made to make their flights more efficient, not so much out of ecological ambition as out of economic necessity: the price of fuel has in fact continued to rise, but competition from low cost airlines has made it impossible. , for traditional societies, increase simply the price of tickets. So, in one way or another, we had to equip ourselves.
On the Guardian, Samanth Subramanian reports, for example, the case of United Airlines, which in 2017 managed to cut down nearly 770,000 liters of fuel in one year simply by reducing the weight of the paper magazines on board. Incredible, right?
Yet all this has been of little use, because in the meantime people have taken to fly (much) more, thanks to the most convenient fares and the convenience of booking flights with one click. If in 1998 the airlines sold 1.46 billion tickets, in 2019 these had become 4.54 billion, and the sector enjoyed a balance that was always positive, with all due respect to Greta Thunberg and its sea crossings from one part of the planet to the other.
A look to the future
So what will be our destiny as travelers who also care about the fate of the planet? Unfortunately, the use of hydrogen engines or the use of bio fuels seem chimeras at the moment, and new energy experiments are expected to be difficult for a sector that is already on its knees. At the same time, however, it is not even conceivable that travel can stop in our global village. What future awaits us, then? The most likely scenario is a rebalancing between the parties: not all airlines will survive the crisis, but perhaps those that will be able to guarantee a certain type of response and adapt to (new) needs will. Fewer operators, smaller planes, more efficient routes, spartan travel (even long haul) to keep prices down. At least for a while we will fly less, but more responsibly. We will take the train, even to go to Paris. After all, if there is one thing that this pandemic has taught us – sorry: remembered – is that living slowly isn't all that bad.
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