The airline industry revival is delayed
The airline industry is experiencing heavy turbulence on its path to recovery. (Photo: Pixabay)
The airline industry hit some historic, all-time lows in 2020 and 2021. In 2020 alone, airline companies suffered $168 billion in economic losses. The tourism industry at large was estimated to have lost about $1.3 trillion, more than 11 times the loss during the 2009 global financial crisis.
This was of course due to COVID. Worldwide lockdowns in the past two years forced the tourism industry to shut down, leaving millions jobless. 2020 has been called the Worst Year in Tourism History, with international arrivals plummeting by 74%, effectively cutting off a huge source of income for many countries. But with the COVID situation finally stabilizing (to a questionable extent), many countries are reviving their tourism programs.
In early April, South Korea opened its borders to tourists from all countries for fully vaccinated individuals, no longer requiring guests to quarantine. Singapore had done the same in February, and many other countries are also now open to accepting tourists following some requirements for testing and vaccination.
And the demand is skyrocketing. A recent study on travel-related Google searches found that passport inquiries have gone up by 80%, and, in general, people’s searches are heavily indicative of an impending travel boom. Hotels and companies like Airbnb are also preparing for more bookings in the coming months.
London’s Heathrow airport saw a surge in passengers over the past few weeks, and has put its passenger forecast for 2022 at 52.8 million, about 65% of the average passengers pre-pandemic. Airline companies around the globe are also seeing a consistent rise in passengers, with some even seeing numbers similar to before the pandemic.
The travel boom may be good news for some, but it’s also raising a few key concerns: is the world really ready for post-COVID tourism, and is the airline industry ready to support the influx of passengers?
Back to the skies (?)
Experts are recommending the “safest” travel destinations based on COVID-19 vaccination and booster rates, as well as precautionary measures like mask requirements. Some recommended popular tourist destinations based on these criteria include South Korea, the UK, and Malaysia, among others.
But are those countries truly ready? Countries all around the world are experiencing a surge in COVID cases, prompting the US’ CDC to warn American tourists against traveling to 135 countries, including South Korea, which they classified as having a “High” level of COVID-19.
Moreover, airline companies are also drastically unprepared for the booming travel demand. British Airways, for instance, has had to cancel hundreds of flights over the next four months due to an inability to keep up with the demand.
The millions of jobs that airline companies slashed at the start of the pandemic have yet to be restored, leading to major understaffing issues across the board. There were 2.3 million fewer jobs in the aviation industry, and with the sudden increase in demand reaching almost pre-pandemic levels, those jobs have yet to be recovered, and it’s causing major delays and chaos in airports all around the world.
To make matters worse, the US and many other countries are seeing a concerning shortage of pilots. At the start of the pandemic, many of the active pilots took an early retirement of voluntary redundancy, and since then, pilot employment has dropped by 4%. The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that America will need 14,500 new pilots every year over the next decade just to keep up with the continuing rise in demand.
Even with restrictions easing, it looks like nobody is actually ready for travel. Not the receiving countries, and certainly not the airline industry– but will people continue to travel anyway? Almost definitely. As we continue to navigate this post-COVID world, we’ll likely do many things we aren’t really ready for. So I guess we just have to hope that the consequences won’t be too dire.
