Coronavirus Impact on Air Travel

[Transpond]

Lufthansa have today announced they will ground 150 aircraft and slash their capacity by 50% due to the coronavirus.
https://www.airlive.net/alert-luftha...o-coronavirus/

And so it continues...

[SWBKCB]

The big risk to the airlines will be when, having been forced to use video conferencing rather than physical visits, businesses realise that much flying is unnecessary and merely serves to allow staff to top up their frequent flyer miles.

Is this one of those "repeat it often and long enough it will come true" things? I've been hearing it since at least the early 90's...

The problem is face to face works better than video-conferencing, it just does. Contrary to popular belief, most organisations aren't totally stupid and most people aren't on business travel for the laughs or the air miles (it would imeasurably improve my "well-being" if I never saw the inside of a train again...), they just know what works.

[Jetscream 32]

Crisis till vaccine!

Whilst nobody knows for sure, it appears that this virus has still got a long way to go and my prediction is that the airline industry as a whole will go through turmoil never experienced or forecasted and so that got me thinking - when will it end....

The answer appears to be when a vaccine that is approved and produced and distributed to the worlds population. And it’s not coming in 2020!!

It would be really interesting to hear airport and airline views on what planning they are doing and what timelines they are working to for business planning purposes.

Lufthansa appear to be quite bold and proactive in culling capacity and even parking up fleets (A380)

Is it time for a global round table of airlines / airports to rapidly agree a consolidated approach to survive?

The travelling public and world at large are spooked and I don’t think they will be queuing up any time soon for airlines and cruise ships no matter how much discount you offer!

Are any other airline management on here willing to offer a view?

Clear Air Turbulence seems to be ahead for a long time!

[Richard Dangle]

Is this one of those "repeat it often and long enough it will come true" things? I've been hearing it since at least the early 90's...

The problem is face to face works better than video-conferencing, it just does. Contrary to popular belief, most organisations aren't totally stupid and most people aren't on business travel for the laughs or the air miles (it would imeasurably improve my "well-being" if I never saw the inside of a train again...), they just know what works.

And no doubt your argument was valid in the 90's...with 90's video conferencing tech...and most big companies strapped to their own servers.

But it's 2020 and whole businesses (mine is one such) operate entirely "cloud-based". Since 50% of our work force, work from home (and 100% can if so required) video conferencing is utterly standard both internally and externally with all our major clients.

Moral of the story...commerce evolves...those that evolve with it survive, those that don't, don't.

[Jonty]

Given that 70% of human communication is non verbal, skype and video conferencing are a poor second to actually meeting someone face to face.

[inOban]

My policy has been to attend in person the first meeting of any group, because there may be people I don't know, and need to get to know. Later meetings I usually VC, even though I'm only travelling 40 miles or so.
It's not uncommon now for companies to conduct recruitment interviews by VC.

[LTNman]

If you want to see how the virus is going to spread just visit Luton Airport. Kissing, cuddling, nose picking, scratching, coughing into hands, plenty of touchy touchy between people of all nationalities and then hands being put on tables, chairs, counters, hand rails, lift buttons, security hand luggage X-ray trays etc. The list is endless.

I don’t touch a thing at the airport but for most people it is life as normal. Maybe they have the right attitude but I don’t see much evidence that people are taking precautions.

[Jonty]

Jesus!
It’s not the Black Death!

[LBAflyer22]

But the way the media have portrayed it you would think it is. The only real diseases currently spreading its way around the world is our poisonous venomous media.

[LTNman]

it won’t be the venomous media that is going to put restrictions on your life it will be the government.

[LBAflyer22]

It's them who have caused the mass panic. The stockpiling of soap and what not. The ones who have wrote articles about "is it safe to travel" which is so far from the truth its almost a lie. The ones who have causes scaremongering. The ones who have used provocative and emotional language to antagonise the public.

The government has a job to do. But more people have died in USA ALONE of Flu than this worldwide.

[LTNman]

Yes and the BBC is amongst the worst. They reported about India cutting back on exports of generic drugs like Paracetamol. They can't be seen now on my local supermarket shelves.

[davidjohnson6]

We are back to a similiar situation as the early days of the credit crunch in summer 2007

Northern Rock was running low on cash, news organisations like the BBC became aware and business journalists started appearing on our TV every day. The masses panicked about their savings - huge queues of people at each branch wanting to take out their money which caused a run on the bank and eventual nationalisation. If the BBC didn't report it, other news organisations, including those outside the UK, would have still run the story.

There is a shortage of paracetamol, but was it a good idea for the UK to allow itself to become so dependent on just 2 countries for a critical drug ? Probably not...

With the Internet, it's impossible in a free democracy to prevent information being accessed by the masses

PS - I know I've simplified about the credit crunch but please don't give me a lecture on the details of this - I probably know far more about this than many. The point of this post is that in a free democracy, we end up with a relatively free media who we expect to tell us what is happening in the world - sometimes this will cause panics but a shortage of toilet roll is a lesser evil than having a dictatorship

[inOban]

I believe that the aim of governments is to extend the epidemic so that only a fairly small number are ill at any one time. If it rampaged through the population, there wouldn't be sufficient healthy nurses etc to care for the significant numbers who get seriously ill.
At least in the UK our data are accurate, because we have a National Health Service. I think that the data in the US aren't much more accurate than those in Iran.

[ZFT]

The aim of all governments is to control the masses by any means fair or foul.

This virus is a perfect excuse to get the masses eyes off the real issues.

If the virus really was a problem, why haven't borders been secured against illegals who could have come from or been in contact with anyone from anywhere?

I sadly know friends killed in car accidents, air accidents, bombings and even Tsunamis but I am yet to even meet someone who had or has SARS, MERS or the latest panic.

I wonder how many Ppuners have met anyone with any of these so called infections?

Many so called experts will make their fortunes from this virus and the responsible parties for the hysteria, media and a myriad of keyboard warriors can latch onto their next rubbish issue. (Maybe Global Freezing)

[LTNman]

With news of a 16 million people quarantine and lockdown in Italy around and including Milan will Northern Italian airports all be closed? Can Alitalia survive?

[eu01]

Alitalia is like the mythological Hydra, so nobody knows.

Concerning Italy, easyJet has published an information on its website:

We are aware of the latest Italian media reports of local government plans to introduce restrictions in the Lombardy, Veneto and Emilia Romagna regions including Milan and Venice. However, we have had confirmation that currently our operations to and from Milan-Malpensa, Milan-Linate and Venice airports are not affected and we plan to operate our flight schedule as normal.

I find it a bit controversial. Is it ecologically acceptable to carry out almost empty flights just because the payments were made much earlier and the cancellations would mean returning the money to all customers?

[flocci_non_faccio]

I personally think that TUI is more exposed in this situation than Jet2, but neither of them are in any sort of imminent danger. This is clearly going to turn out to be a shocking year for airlines and tour operators, but there's already been significant consolidation in the market. All the players still standing have the resources to weather this particular storm.

[LTNman]

The unprecedented decree, that affects more than a quarter of Italians, forbids anyone from leaving or entering the new red zones except for exceptional circumstances until at least 3 April.

So according to Sky News Italians can't travel. I assume that means they can't fly. Not much point in having the airports open apart from allowing non Italians to catch the virus and to take it home.

[LBAflyer22]

Originally Posted by davidjohnson6

PS - I know I've simplified about the credit crunch but please don't give me a lecture on the details of this - I probably know far more about this than many. The point of this post is that in a free democracy, we end up with a relatively free media who we expect to tell us what is happening in the world - sometimes this will cause panics but a shortage of toilet roll is a lesser evil than having a dictatorship

Which is good. However when it comes to something like the coronavirus they should be informing the public of the facts in a very calm and measured manner to not cause panic. It should also be presented with facts from a reliable source (WHO, GOV). Instead our media don't do that they instead scaremonger and go for emotive language to cause panic. Which will effect many many businesses both indirectly and directly. If they fail to provide these facts in a calm and measured manner from reliable sources (which they should be able to prove where they come from) they should be shut down (like News of the World) and the editors should no longer be able to work in Media since they signed off on hysteria and the owners will be stripped of any owning rights of any media outlet.