Originally Posted by 14 6
Aussiefarmer, I think you should stick to farming!
Luckly this is a pilot forum, I'll worry when a TRE tells me that during a PPC debrief. I grew up farming mate and have no issues going back full time. Not done with flying though.
Originally Posted by Visual Procedures
The problem with this forecast, is EK is 1500 pilots less than what they were in 2019. There is no chance EK can be operating at 2019 levels in 2023, even if they started rehiring yesterday.
I'd be surprised if they haven't thought of that. I'm sure they can ramp up training as required without problems even using unused A380 sims from other carriers if that was required. In the past, they have trained over 600 pilots plus many upgrades within a year.
That requires much more training capacity than rejoiners.
Originally Posted by nervous_novice
I think you are a tad optimistic and I think that you are way off.
I'm probably on the optimistic side - happy to hear arguments against it - but that's in line with IATA and senior airline exec forecasts. What is happening now (UK list, US recommendations...) looks like a step back but there are all logical reactions to uneven epidemic realities around the World. That will get sorted in time.
True we've been here more than a year and honestly, at first, I thought things wouldn't pick up for many years. But now I reckon recovery will happen faster. Vaccines are the only way out of this and are luckly being rolled out at pace.
There is massive pent-up demand (you can see it every time restrictions are lifted).
Regarding long-term economic damage, I reckon is very limited due to the massive stimulus that have been given by the governments of developed nations. The majority of travelers have more savings now than in 2019. Wealthy and middle-high class in developing countries will have no issues getting vaccinated and back in the skies again.
Originally Posted by Pistolpete47
Still only 3% of the population have taken the shot
That's plain wrong, 11.5% of HKG residents have taken a dose, which is in line with many other countries at the moment.
Vaccine hesitancy exists, particularly in certain parts Asia, but current rollouts and studies are showing that % of people that will not get one is much lower than previously thought. And that, by itself, won't stop EK from ramping up their business again.