The global airline industry was seeing light at the end of the tunnel following successful rollout of vaccines in many countries, but the Delta variant seems to delay the recovery.
In the United States and many other key aviation markets, the Delta variant is wreaking havoc among the unvaccinated, prompting some analysts to dub it the "pandemic of the unvaccinated".
The new burst of infections is affecting mostly the unvaccinated, and in the US alone, there are 90mn people still to be vaccinated as take-up has slowed dramatically, according to the CAPA Centre for Aviation.
A vaccine tracker showed that the percentage of unvaccinated (globally) stood at 63.8% as of September 7.
Enough doses have now been administered to fully vaccinate 36.2% of the global population—but the distribution has been lopsided, according to Bloomberg. Countries and regions with the highest incomes are getting vaccinated more than 20 times faster than those with the lowest.
Globally, the latest vaccination rate is 37,255,165 doses per day, on average. At this pace, it will take another five months to cover 75% of the population. Medical experts say the caseload may come down when nearly 75% of the population gets vaccinated.
As the Delta variant wreaks havoc among the unvaccinated, many major US companies are delaying any return to office working until 2022, and signs are clearly showing that travel plans are following suit, CAPA Centre for Aviation says.
While international markets still remain either closed or at best difficult, that means domestic business traffic too is going to be heavily diluted at least until the New Year.
“Previously optimistic noises from the airlines are now becoming more muted. The obvious correlation between infections and business hesitancy means any recovery will be delayed until there is greater certainty about the safety of travelling.
“With the Delta variant rampant, and now the Mu variant, uncertainty is the order of the day. This has significant implications in the short term for airline revenues and jobs; it also raises the question of whether government will still be prepared to step in with a further round of support, if business doesn’t improve,” CAPA Centre for Aviation noted.
The airline industry’s recovery has been grounded by the recent spike in Covid-19 cases, mostly Delta variant, prompting US travellers to cancel travel plans for the Labour Day weekend.
The US is the largest aviation market in the world.
Air travel neared pre-pandemic levels in the country in July — giving the airlines momentum and optimism for a robust fall season — but flight bookings dipped in August, amid soaring infection rates fuelled by the highly contagious delta variant.
But flight bookings for Labour Day weekend were down 15% from pre-pandemic levels as of late August, according to Adobe Digital Insights.
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) director Rochelle Walensky recently advised unvaccinated Americans not to travel on Labour Day weekend and warned that vaccinated travellers also need to weigh risk of contracting the Delta variant.
Besides the new Covid-19 outbreaks because of the Delta variant, the airline recovery has also been delayed due to the government-mandated travel restrictions including border closings and quarantine measures.
The resurgence of the virus and associated restrictions weighed on air travel recovery progress across many domestic and international markets.
Airline traffic won’t see a major boost until vaccines saturate populations enough to stamp down infection rates. Even then, it may take effort to get some people back on planes.
The coronavirus pandemic tore through in a tumultuous, unprecedented way — leaving carriers in a deep hole, along with a constellation of aerospace manufacturers, airports and leasing firms.
Dozens of airlines have already disappeared or filed for bankruptcy since the pandemic began, data show. More are on life support, in danger of getting swallowed by stronger players.
That said, restarting international travel is vital to supporting the 46mn travel and tourism jobs around the world that rely on aviation.
Aviation is a vector of globalisation, which has lifted a billion people from poverty since 1990.
For each day that the crisis continues, the potential for job losses and economic devastation grows. Moreover, the loss of aviation connectivity will have a dramatic impact on the global GDP, threatening $1.8tn in economic activity!

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