Looks like Lufthansa are taking their first bite at the post-Coronavirus bullet

https://travelweekly.co.uk/articles/...s-crisis-fleet

Seems like a logical approach to reduce costs. I wonder if others will take a similar decision soon or wait a while longer and see how things play out?

Friend working Gatwick yesterday................. indicated they expected 2.5 Million people over Easter Period, reality is they will be lucky with 200, Belavia flying to Minsk, Ryanair flying to Ireland but the Ryanair arrivals has 20 people on the plane.

Simon Calder on 5 Live saying he expects travel within the UK to start mid-May and gradual travel abroad from the end of May, improving in June. His caveat that he is being optimistic and could be wrong.

I strongly echo the caveat!

Air travel within the UK has not completely stopped - you can still fly today between LHR and MAN, EDI, GLA, ABZ, IOM and BHD.

Scaremongery.

It’s entirely feasible that the UK will be moving again by early May and that there will be movement again in to most parts of Europe at least by June. That very much sits with what all the expert economists are saying.

The problem is that most economists (and I trained as one many years ago !) know very little about medicine or public health - I would not trust anything an economist says about things where the medical profesion are (almost) the sole experts
You can talk about rational agents until the cows come home.... but some things outweigh economic preferences !

108 new cases in China in the last 24 hours with most of them imported yet China now has some of the most restrictive foreign travel restrictions in the world.

Would someone like to tell me how the UK will not follow the same pattern if domestic restrictions are lifted in June?

I would think that despite the UK being very relaxed in letting in the virus with no restrictions or quarantine requirements that could change if we get a substantial drop in our own cases. Also there will be far more cases around the world of this virus in May and June than there is now.

I think that we should all assume the worst, then we can't get disappointed.
One flight pet day between EDI and LHR hardly cpunts as a service. I would expect domestic to be allowed to restart within the foreseeable future, but overseas much later. After all it's being suggested that us oldies will have to stay in lockdown until there's a vaccine.

The market for travel is built on the need or desire to physically meet people - vfr traffic and business meetings. Both of these things are effectively off limits. Then there is tourism but with almost all hotels shut, where would folks stay?
When restrictions on the drivers and enablers of travel start to be lifted there will be more flying. The immediate question for airlines starting passenger flying programs again is 'where will they be allowed to fly to?'. Who would want a plane-load of Brits or Belgians or Germans etc etc?
This crisis will create a deep seated xenophobia in places that we used to travel to with ease; as well as our own home-grown version (frankly who would welcome a coach load of chinese tourists turning up at their venue right now or even in the medium-term given that they started the whole thing). That will take some time to dissipate. Brits literally may not be allowed in to some countries for months to come or longer. It will be a long slog back to what was there before (3-5 years imo). Even when a vaccine is readily available, many countries may insist on a certificate of proof prior to entry. The barriers to travel are not coming down any time soon even if the desire returns.

I don't think I'll be back in my office by early May, much less thinking about travelling for business or any other reason. France has just extended their lockdown to 11 May, so travel to most parts of Europe by June looks optimistic

There is a huge elephant in the room. So bad has been our Government’s preparation and response to the virus, with so little testing, that while parts of Europe may well be open by June we may find that as Brits we are ourselves subject to entry restrictions and thus cannot go.

Don’t think many governments have come out of this looking good. The EU has been a total shambles with each country doing their own thing with zero unity between the 27. The four nations of the UK have acted as one but like most countries have been slow to respond.

As for air travel I hope other nations do put restrictions on the UK as it helps to keep us from importing other cases.

There seem to me only three ways this crisis will end.
1. Some drug treatment is discovered which blocks the immune overreaction which is killing people by damaging their lungs. I see no sign of this although there are clinical trials.
2. After the current lockdown succeeds in reducing the numbers to a manageable level, the disease is allowed to work its way through the population until herd immunity is established. The studies on a few severely affected communities suggest that the first wave reached ca 15%, so it will take many months for this to happen. Most lockdown rules would have to continue all this time. (In Hokkaido, which had an early outbreak, they've just had to reimpose restrictions after a second wave began.)
3. A successful vaccine is created and is manufactured at scale. Not before this winter.

I see no way that significant international flights will restart this summer.

Article from Travel Weekly this morning would support that EU have similar thoughts...

https://www.travelweekly.co.uk/artic...s-ec-president

Totally understandable but not the sort of news those hoping for a swift return for aviation would wish to hear.
The global picture may be different of course with the Americans sounding rather gung-ho overnight but I would imagine a common sense approach with a gradual relaxation of the rules when the time is right is what will be seen. The unanswered question is when “when” will be but it will evidently vary from country to country.

I think we can all be certain that restrictions will be lifted way to early so to save the economy. Pubs, restaurants and mass gatherings will be the last to be lifted and probably not until the autumn. Those taking self isolation seriously will just carry on regardless as there will still be many new cases reported daily as those coming out of isolation get infected. Air travel will be decimated well into next year.

There are some looking particularly bad, and they have politics in common...Trump, Johnson, Erdogan, Bolsonaro.

Funny you say the nations of the EU have been doing their own thing...I was told Brussels has all the power and leaving the EU would enable us to control our own borders?

There are also a number of countries that have done particularly well

AirportPlanner1
I would be interested to hear which countries you think are handling CVD19 well and why?

27 voices, 27 different policies and zero coordination in a crisis. Politicians at each other’s throats where they can’t even agree a financial response that has any meaning.

Worth a read for those that think the EU can do nothing wrong https://euobserver.com/coronavirus/148039

Each European country will have there own policy on opening up borders. Flight from Romania to Luton are expected to resume on the 19th

New Zealand - early lockdown, early checking & quarantine of arrivals, open/transparent leadership/decision making

Singapore, S Korea - Thorough testing etc, kept what could be huge infections and death tolls under control

Austria - Quickly and firmly took action, now reaping rewards as early to start resuming parts of normal life

Germany - No better/worse than most other European countries but starting point of excellent critical care capacity which helps explain low death rate

Italy has announced increased restrictions to its borders today while starting to relax a few restrictions to those living in Italy. I would hope we would follow with our own border restrictions. What is the point of having our own social isolation when we just let anyone in from anywhere in the world with no quarantine, no checks and no questions.