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Old 9th Oct 2020, 14:50
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WillowRun 6-3
 
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ATC Watcher: yes, forgot those airframers - you're positively right, around and around the rosy scenario did spin. Still the dire situation with overtones of despair triggers that old engineering aphorism, careful enough statement of the problem implies the solution. Does that help here . . . .? Consider these. Split the crisis in the worldwide airline sector into two main and one smaller parts.

The first part is what ordinarily would be identified as "excess capacity." Since this is just a rumour and I have no fear of committing news, some liberties will be taken. Ballpark the degree to which the crisis can be categorized as "excess capacity" as upwards of 40 percent, not quite half of the situation. Deal with that part of the crisis the way any similar deep recession caused by far more routine economy problems would be dealt with. Seems like it's all pretty standard (seniority lists, retirement of older less efficient aircraft, some consolidation, some so-called 'creative destruction'.) The liberty taken here is that such nominal moves will seem insurmountable due to pandemic factors at the least - but give an SLF a chance to sketch out a whole piece.

Second major part is, recognize the change that has been wrought upon, for lack of a better term, the market/enterprise -- the basic set of reasons why people travel by air in the first place. We've all seen essays about how the move to virtual meetings and so on not only is here to stay, but is a big improvement (maybe yes, maybe not so much). Certainly the "demand side" of the market/enterprise will stay depressed for some time, on account of the rise of Hey-Professor-Unmute-Yourself-world. And it also is depressed because of unacceptable risk of infection, or the perception of that risk, or uncertainty about these (or some combining of those factors). Addressing this second major part . . .

(A), repurpose some of the excess capacity and furloughed personnel. We've seen cargo ops become more intense, I think, and (again, taking liberties) if the office-world is getting forcibly evicted and relocated, then won't folks need to retool their homes to a good extent? And in the early part of the pandemic spring this awful 2020, weren't cargo flight ops heavier for shipments of medical supplies? (actually I think that's factual). SLF as I am and better get ready to duck but even Hailey's novel has an uplifting description of air freight; surely the massive amounts of air carrier people, equipment and expertise can arrive at economically viable and socially useful "stuff" to transport by air. Heck, even in my own legal career I've advised clients who were shipping component parts for pretty routine light fixtures by air, and also more recently customized aftermarket automobile items especially fancy wheels.

(B) Innovate and reallocate. With all this air carrier stuff sitting idle, even after conventional cargo has been boosted up (liberty taken) surely the stunning bright lights of the world who have commanded a vast restructuring of essentially all activity (see, Green New Deal, also see, overall carbon emission reduction plans) can find entirely new kinds of transport-by-air activities that will help even their lofty if also unrealistic goals. You like shopping at [insert trade name of popular larger-quantity warehouse-style food and household store], you say? Spec out the construction material and gear for 10 of those stores to be built in, say, some environ of Mexico City where there is, to borrow the buzz-phrase, food insecurity. Transport by air the construction equipment, materials, crew, engineers, and so forth. Replicate dozens of times around that country and then....etc. (Pilot projects would be needed first of course, and all kinds of stuff would need to be worked out country by country, location by location - but airlines as a sector, they operate in the whole entire world, correct??)

(c) Create a well-defined set of conditions for a 14-day "guarantee period". You enter the 14-day with a quick-response Covid test, and if negative you stay in that defined set of conditions for all 14 days and then get a second quick test before being authorized to travel. This creates certainty that the person, individually, presents little if any risk. And only those people would be permitted to operate, or travel on, the flights. More than ordinary "quarantine" because there would need to be a list of defined conditions to be observed to assure that the end of the 14 day period test is valid, or as valid as it gets.

The smaller part of the problem - with regard to airlines as a sector - is the massive problem of the pandemic still unsolved in the rest of world economies and countries. Time will tell what relation so-called "wet" wildlife markets, virology labs, lack of candor and information, and other factors may have had to the bursting-upon-the-scene emergence of the virus. In the meantime, though, focusing on metrics devised before this unconventionally novel virus emerged won't help much. It could be that it's just a darn shame, and the airline sector must suffer, and suffer deeply, until the virus is conquered, as long as that might take given uncertainties and gaps in knowledge about what it is and how it spreads and how it harms human anatomy and physiology. But - what Wayne Gretzy used to say: you miss 100 percent of the shots you don't take. If the airline sector sits back and waits for medical science and health care policy to climb this mountain, well, it will be a long and difficult carry,

Not least, and in case a bit more optimism could be appreciated, have a look at the "Wise Persons" group report on the future of Eurocontrol and SESAR-JU, and a related report on the role of Artificial Intelligence in future ATM in Europe. It was pre-pandemic of course. But it's halftime, the refs have made some terrible calls, the team is way down both on the Scoreboard and in demeanor, and somebody has to point to something to create hope. Like, you miss one hundred percent of the flights you don't board.
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