IATA estimates aviation’s pandemic losses at $201bn
The International Air Transport Association has estimated that the aviation sector will return to profitability in 2023.
As a result of the pandemic, aviation will lose around $201bn before returning profitable in 2023. As explained by International Air Transport Association’s (IATA) director general Willie Walsh, losses in 2021 are expected to be nearly $52bn – a steep increase from the $138bn that were lost in 2020 as a result of the travel restrictions that were applied worldwide to stop the Covid-19 pandemic. In 2022, the numbers will decrease to around $12bn.
In his report, Walsh highlighted that while the industry is on the path to recovery, stakeholders from all sides – including governments and industry partners – need to work together to keep aviation safe, from both health and security risks.
“There is no doubt that we are far more secure today than in 2001. But we could be much more efficient if we eliminated measures that have been surpassed by technology,” read Walsh’s report. “We cannot allow this same mistake to be repeated with Covid-19.”
When it comes to the management of Covid-19, the aviation is unified when it asks for open borders – relying on travel passports that allow vaccinated travellers to avoid quarantine measures.
Stakeholders should also strive for consensus when it comes to Covid-19 risk management. Walsh called “wildly inconsistent” the different travel restrictions currently in use around the world, calling for a set of industry best practices to be applied everywhere.
He said: “Travel restrictions are a complex and confusing web of rules with very little consistency among them and there is little evidence to support ongoing border restrictions and the economic havoc they create.”
To those stakeholders believing that an increase of charges is the best way forward for the industry to get back on its feet, Walsh said: “Placing the financial burden of a crises of apocalyptic proportions on the back of your customers, just because you can, is a commercial strategy that only a monopoly supplier could dream up.
“Reducing costs—not increasing charges—must be at top of everyone’s agenda.”