Beyond the Tarmac- Aviation Page

 

After a very challenging 2020, the year started with lots of promise, following successful Covid vaccine roll out around the world.

Even as vaccination initiatives gather pace, especially in worst affected countries such as the United States, South America, UK, Continental Europe and India, new Covid variants are leading governments to increase travel restrictions. The uncertainty around how long these restrictions will last also has an impact on future travel.

The global aviation industry’s financial prospects for 2021 seem to be worsening as governments’ tighten travel restrictions.

The Covid-19 pandemic has posed unprecedented challenges to the world, international air transport sector in particular.

Border closures, flight restrictions, travel advisories, and social distancing measures implemented in response to the global pandemic have resulted in an unprecedented decline in aviation activity.

“2021 is starting off worse than 2020 ended and that is saying a lot,” noted Alexandre de Juniac, IATA’s Director General and CEO at a virtual media briefing recently.

Increased testing capability and vaccine distribution are the keys for governments to unlock economic activity, including travel. It is critical that governments build and share their restart plans along with the benchmarks that will guide them. This will enable the industry to be prepared to energise the recovery without any unnecessary delay,” said de Juniac.

Global standards to securely record test and vaccination data in formats that will be internationally recognised are urgently needed, IATA insists.

“These will be critical to restarting international travel if governments continue to require verified testing or vaccination data. IATA will soon launch the ‘IATA Travel Pass’ to help travellers and governments manage digital health credentials. But the full benefit of IATA Travel Pass cannot be realised until governments agree the standards for the information they want,” said de Juniac.

The global body of airlines now expects the industry to burn through $75-$95bn in cash this year, rather than turning cash positive in the fourth quarter, as previously thought. This is not something that the industry will be able to endure without additional relief measures from governments.

One of the major challenges for the aviation industry is how to restore confidence among passengers about air travel and to convince them that during the pandemic times, travel is not at all risky, provided adequate precautions are taken.

The global airline industry has been badly hit as the travel and tourism sector has been ravished by the pandemic, and there is a pressing need to recover the hundreds of millions of jobs lost.

An economic modelling by the London-based World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC), which represents global travel and tourism private sector, suggests that 174mn jobs (in the sector) were impacted in 2020 globally.

International travel and tourism, and particularly, international spend, is vital to support the job creation from mega cities to rural communities.

According to the research, at the global level, for every 34 international visitors to a destination, one new job is created.

This figure is more important in Africa, Asia-Pacific and the Middle East, where it respectively takes 11, 13 and 24 international visitors for the creation of one new job.

The modelling also shows that for every $1 generated in direct travel and tourism GDP globally, more than $2 is generated indirectly.

This means that more than twice as much value is generated across the entire supply chain thanks to travel and tourism.

For every direct job globally, nearly two new jobs are created on an indirect or induced basis, with one direct job in travel and tourism effectively creating a total of three jobs.

Additionally, diversity in the travel ecosystem, as it relates to race, ethnicity, gender, culture, religion, and physical ability, is fundamental to the success of businesses, the meaningful impact on communities, and the improved experience of travellers.

Gloria Guevara, President & CEO, WTTC said, “Travel and tourism is one of the most diverse sectors, employing people from all socio-economic backgrounds regardless of age, gender or ethnicity, with almost 54% of whom are women and up to 30% youths.

“After nearly a full year of insecurity and hardship that has come from the Covid-19 pandemic, the time could not be more appropriate to celebrate the importance of the sector.”

 

* Pratap John is Business Editor at Gulf Times. Twitter handle: @PratapJohn