The industry failed to realize the burden on the passangers already before covid. There is considerable prep time, administration, coordination going into airline travel on the customers side. Everyone is their own travel agent these days. The amount of work and the cost and the nagging with check-in and security and boarding has its limits. The traveling public already made their threat assessment and risk-reward analysis, so they ditched all unnecessary travel. They have no patience for gimmicks, non-refund policies, while the airlines are stil seemingly trying to sell an old product.
There is a trust breakdown as well. Airlines and airports were all about safetysafetymoresafety and now they spectacularly failed to mitigate the biggest safety matter of the day, this may add to the perceived threat. Travelers are possibly consciously or unconsciously holding airlines responsible for their contribution to the pandemic.