Originally Posted by
Fuel-Off
Just a little perspective from the outside. I haven't stopped working since the pandemic started (thankfully!) and it would seem that albeit light, passenger demand is still there, especially in Business and First as those who can afford it, wish to socially distance the best they can on aluminium tube.
Re video conferencing, I have quite a few friends in executive level management in companies completely away from aviation. They don't see this way of doing business practical particularly when you're doing multi million dollar deals, you need to see their poker face. And in Asia, face to face business dealings are VERY culturally important.
I agree that videoconferencing will never completely replace face to face meetings. Business travel will still recover to levels similar to 2019 within time, as will leisure travel, as people physically want to travel and visit people and places and that is so ingrained within the public consciousness now it’ll never change.
The only real threat is the method of getting people there, so I see Australian aviation’s biggest long term threat not Zoom or another pandemic, it will be if Australia ever bothers to build a Brisbane-Sydney-Canberra-Melbourne High Speed Railway. London to Paris air traffic decreased 55%, Madrid to Barcelona 65% after the opening of those respective high speed railways. But that’ll probably take 20 years to eventuate one this country, so I wouldn’t be worrying about it just yet.