Episode 14 - Covid-19 crashes Global Aviation but here are the likely future scenarios

This is episode 14 and I was expecting to continue with the planned series but I’m afraid the world has changed in the last few weeks. Needless to say, if anything has to be done right now, it’s to understand what may happen to commercial aviation in the future. Some airlines are close to bankruptcy, others are being bailed out. Most have cut back on operations and are considering their next moves. There is a lot of politics, a lot of economics and not a lot of physics happening other than gravity dragging the revenue curve sharply downwards. Let’s see if we can make sense of what is going on internationally and in the next few minutes in this podcast, I’m going to make an effort not to inflate an already disastrous situation by too many adverbs or pronouns. Words like catastrophe, apocalyptic or disastrous. As aviation is all about numbers, we need to take a close look at the sector and understand just who may survive and who may not. Because commercial aviation is literally the lifeblood of modern business, flying globally is going to continue after this virus has been defeated. However things are not going to be business as usual after the pandemic passes. I’ve been attending webinars where IATA – the International Air Travel Association – has been briefing us about the latest in the Corona-virus affected aviation sector. I’ve been reading the professional pilots rumour network and receiving daily updates from various aviation sources, along with the Official Aviation Guide or OAG. My own flying has been cut. I’m grounded as here in South Africa we are on a strictly enforced lockdown and most domestic flights have stopped, while all international flights in and out have been shut down entirely.