It was inevitable that there were going to be major outbreaks at universities, as I was following what was happening on NBC nightly news when the American universities went back a month earlier. It was also inevitable that there was going to be a second wave in the general population here after seeing the signs in much of Europe. When people mix the virus eventually spreads, it is as simple as that. If people stop mixing like in the first lock down cases drop. The hard bit for all governments around the world is getting the balance right, which is not helped in our case by those that ignore the rules and a lack of testing and tracing.

With a virus that is once again out of control there will be even less inclination for the travelling public to sit next to a random stranger for a few hours when we are all told to socially distance to help protect ourselves. The reasons for that reluctance will include the possibility of death, getting long Covid and giving it to older family members. Obviously some will consider the risks as acceptable but most won’t. Getting a test at the airport reduces the quarantine period but offers little else in the way of comfort.

IATA - Research Points to Low Risk for COVID-19 Transmission Inflight

Probably not the most unbiased source, but I'll leave it to others to analyse their methodology...

...so the 20+ infections on that infamous Zakynthos flight definitely didn't happen then....

People don’t sit still, they move around the aircraft, use the toilet, go to the overhead luggage locker and eat and drink. Also the filtering system apparently doesn’t work without engine power which isn’t great of you are on stand for half an hour. The safest place has been reported to be a window seat.

No, it doesn't mean that - just that the probability that it happened is infinitesimally small. :O

I am a cynic, and to me the return of the Greek Islands to quarantine free status probably has more to do with the 18 -30 crowd being back in education, college or University, and of course work making the Islands a less risky place to return from that they were when the grown up "children" were partying; rather then any large reduction in local transmission rates.

Fat lot of good it does for the travel industry with the summer season having got 3 weeks left to go.

214 Countries and Territories around the world have this Lurgy and we are still implementing travel bans,corridors and quarantine etc.You can't even travel across the UK without bumping into a circuit-breaker!

Hence why would Govt spen millions when it is not needed yet for aviation. People are not flying.

Of course it is. Everything the government is doing is perception rather than scientifically based. You can go to the Royal Albert Hall indoors but you cannot go to an outdoor Wembley stadium.

For what it’s worth. I don’t think there have been any significant outbreaks involving aircrew on board flights (happy to be proved otherwise if there is evidence or not out there).

As for the government not bailing out airlines - well, the well is starting to run dry. I’d quite like to have a career in this industry. These cash reserves are going to be running seriously short without injections in the next few months.

A lot of the problems of this summer have been deferred down the road to next year: there’s going to be some seriously difficult choices coming executives way.

https://www.iata.org/en/pressroom/pr...TwYzk_qaSCXCx4


Puts a little perspective on flying during the pandemic

50/100,000 over 14 days rules out most of Europe at the moment. Can’t see familes paying for tests at point of departure to go on holiday. It’s basically a non-starter.

So over half of the worlds cases occurred on just one TUI flight then? So who has written this independent report? Why the airline manufacturers including Boeing.

The people infected on the TUI flight didn’t get it from the flight. They got it in the resort.

But this doesn't fit the narrative as while thouasands travel London Underground every day the transmission will be blamed on people meeting others in a pub, when it is an aircraft it is the airline at fault. London underground system of course has "clean" filtered air just like a morning in the mountains.

Travel Industry is dead, 2022 it might recover but the continued scaremongering may make that a struggle.

Racedo is right to be pessimistic. There are differences in facts and perceptions. The public need to "feel" safety whether or not based on fact.
To bring confidence in air travel, the industry needs to work on enhancing personal space. This means a better way of managing security screening, avoiding herds in snake queues. The same at border controls. It means better boarding & disembarkation systems. It means more space, less people on board- less of the cramming maximum numbers in a metal tube. Obviously this comes at a cost and would force the end of ridiculously over low priced tickets. Surely it would be better to transport less people but more comfortably at a higher cost than hardly any people at all. In the short term personal space is going to be the only way to bring back confidence in air travel.

About a month ago, Easyjet had a policy that on arrival, pax would leave the aircraft one row at a time, so as to ensure social distancing. Last week, that policy had been effectively abandoned with the usual rush for the exit when the seatbelt sign was turned off

The only way to build confidence amongst pax, is to either a) have a vaccine, b) provide PCR or antigen tests with suitable paperwork near a person's home shortly before departure for free or at minimal cost (and this will fail if Govt require 2 tests spaced out a week apart to avoid quarantine), or c) have sufficiently low numbers of cases in both origin and destination that people believe the risk of quarantine anywhere is extremely low.

Anything about publicising how armrests are disinfected, or spacing people out at security queues is purely symbolic. There is enormous overcapacity of aircraft right now - the only way to persuade airlines to raise fares significantly is if a large number of major airlines go bankrupt... or Govt pass laws requiring aircraft fly at no more than maybe 33% of seat capacity

I hate to say it, but the travel industry right now is not a priority for Govts around the world

I have zero intention of taking a vaccine until 2-3 years in use. I am not the only one.

10 days after a paperwork requirement there will be people showing up at airports with fake paperwork.


Number of cases in irrelevant, number of people who require hospital ICU is.

As of now there are 37.5 Million reported cases and 1.1 million deaths, assumming because of lack of testing that the cases are double the testing then a 1.5% fatality rate or less of infected people is destroying economies.

Using the worldometer stats https://www.worldometers.info/corona...=homeAdvegas1? that shows a death rate of 4% from 29 million cases.