Sometimes history repeats . . .
It was a few years ago when this SLF was lucky enough to hear a presentation by the late Donald Bunker, the undisputed "king" of the law of aircraft finance in the world (literally wrote the multi-volume book). He had been incentivized to leave a high-level Montreal practice for a Gulf state and a boutique practice with close ties to one of those carriers.
Mr. Bunker, in offering observations about some of the regrettable problems facing the industry even then (let's say, circa autumn 2014), listed a number of factors. Of relevance here is that senior managements were not able properly to respond to the terrorist attacks of September 11th. "But those were so unpredictable", someone commented.
The response: management is supposed to include leadership, at least at the upper level. And proper leadership knows "something" is going to happen, even it it does not know what that contingency will turn out to be. In simpler terms, there was a lack of preparedness in a generalized sense. There isn't a font device I can use here to describe how evocatively the very expert Mr. Bunker emphasized the word "something" but if there was a special font it probably would be called "there is the unknown but don't be afraid of it, be ready and prepared".
How many times have the good folks in the industry, as well as in the constellation of international and intergovernmental organizations poured out forecasts of doubling of traffic over such-and-such number of near-future years? Of glorious reductions in air traffic in order to shave a few (possibly miniscule) percentage points off of total carbon emissions? Lots of hot air of international organizations as well as domestic lobbying and interest groups have knocked their own socks off with rosy scenarios equated to what the future will, we are sure, will hold. And then there's the CAPSCA group, which was tasked with making sure civil aviation worldwide did its proper part in containing any epidemic before it could reach pandemic levels. Yeah, good job there.
The pigeons come home to . . . no, too cliched. The old thing about karma . . . . no, too suggestive or vulgar. Hows about, "aviation in its simplest sense is man[kind] against the elements." (From Airport, the novel, by Arthur Hailey, perhaps paraphrased a tad; the musings of Lincoln International Airport general manager, Mel Bakersfeld, played in Hollywood's adaptation by the great Burt Lancaster.) This time, the elements, said now to include humans' vulnerability to disease, have won. The only bailout the industry deserves, and the only bailout that will help in reality, is to remember that it is people who operate the entire works, and as important as short-term payroll support certainly can be, the industry had better get its head out of the sand. Otherwise I'll be sure to find a nice, airport-sounding name for my next service animal to bring onboard the aircraft, maybe a four-headed autonomous pangolin bred with a certain species of bat.