The travelling public has a very short memory.
In a year to 18 months,apart from the sad loss of some familiar outfits,people will have forgotten. People are far more resilient and selfish and will want to fly. As for freight flying dropping off,quite the opposite,certainly the last outfit I worked for is balls out!

I believe that if this crisis is contained within 3 months there will be an almighty surge for air travel once again, but If it goes on any longer than that it will be very different!

“Can you name three of these "draconian new laws" passed in Australia?”

Errrm, just passed a TV where the ‘tickertape’ news said “Nationwide crackdown on social gatherings”. Borders have been closed. Overseas travel has been ‘banned’.

Have you been living under a rock?

Before this started, a criminal trial was held in complete secrecy in Canberra - in a country that claims to be governed by the rule of law. Journalists’ homes were raided as they had the temerity to try to discover and disclose the truth about the actions of members of the ADF. You now have to explain why you want to spend $10,000 or more in cash. The bureaucrats who think all these things are “good” for us will be licking their lips at the controls being put in place now.

Post Covid19 Aviation
 

She'll be right

Lead B, these are patently temporary "laws" under the public health act not the stealthy introduction of George Orwell type laws, you know very well what he and I were referring to. The trial "in camera" and the journalists raids were pre-virus so not really relevant. If a journalist has been seen to break the law why should the police not investigate? Why do they get a free pass?

Good question, why don't you ask Angus Taylor? The cops dropped that case pretty quickly.

Or maybe Bridget McKenzie.

So many examples to choose from. Such a trustworthy government we have here.

The immediate future for the travel industry is probably dependant on what all we elderly travellers decide to do: call quits on overseas travel, (insurance/superannuation losses/increasing physical difficulty), or, limit the longer distance travel and keep closer to home. From what I hear in my age group, it is going to be some of both. The real determining factor is probably financial - we just won't have the discretionary spending power of before. In my case, it has been 2 overseas trips, often cruises + air travel), per year, and many older than me,(79), do 3 per year. I have already lost a quantum equal to my GFC losses: from which we never completely recovered. This time it is going to be bad, and many, many of my fellow SMSF owners will begin the Age Pension in the very near future. Our future travel prospects are dim, and this will take some time to replace. The Boomers were a 'once-in-a-lifetime' phenomena.

The “pre-virus” stuff is directly relevant: It shows the steady erosion of individual rights and basic precepts of the rule of law.

Re the journalists, it’s about who the police choose to investigate versus those they don’t. Hunt down and punish any outsider who exposes the truth. Don’t hunt down and punish insiders who are responsible for the conduct that is exposed.

The ease with which all these “temporary” arrangements are imposed will give the bureaucracy a ‘taste’. History demonstrate that practically unfettered power is very addictive.

From my perspective the most interesting aspect of this experiment will be how the authorities practically react to disobedience. Are they going to build and fill new gaols with the dozen people who attend a funeral and the two dozen who attend a wedding? If a bunch of mates jump in a car and go for a drive ‘just for the fun of it’, are the authorities going to put the lads in gaol? Some governments are talking about releasing existing ‘low risk’ prisoners from gaol.

Does a person who has lost everything care about a $13,000 fine? Might as well make it $13million. Probably get to court in around 2022.

I was employed in the finance industry during the GFC. Maybe some here were still in short pants at school when that blew through town. Here is a snapshot what I witnessed while servicing clients.

Many lost their home/investment property/car
Some committed suicide
Many lost their jobs and never returned to their original occupation or pre GFC salary level
Many superannuation accounts halved (yes they came back eventually) this delayed many retiring which completely screwed opportunities for the young.
Some experienced mental illness and were never the same.
Many went bankrupt.

Considering this appears many times more damaging then the GFC (this is a health crisis and an economic crisis) I wouldn't expect to see the bounce in air travel as many have stated.
The wealth of millions of people has been destroyed and I suspect we are still in the early days of an undefined timeline. How is the government going to bail out all of these people and the companies they work for? More money printing? Taxation?
Some other points to consider:
Consumers are carrying far more debt than in the GFC. Australians have the highest private debt levels per capita in the world.
Anyone under say 35 hasn't seen bad times as a working adult thus the appetite for risk in many was extreme.
Interest rates were higher at around 7% from memory and the RBA had plenty of room to move - today they are out of ammunition with regards to rates
The issues of the GFC were never resolved - "the can was just kicked down the road" as they say

I suspect this is a brave new world where the excesses and luxuries experienced by so many are gone for now including air travel and holidays.

This is a huge sh*t sandwich and we are all going to take a bite - unfortunately even our kids and grand kids.

If you weren't working with a mortgage over your head during a recession or the GFC you wouldn't understand why so many people have a grim outlook.

The voice of experience. Thanks ADawg.

And don’t forget: During the GFC (and in the wake of the ‘87 ‘crash’) government was not directing businesses not to operate. The schools were still open and the hospitals operated as normal.

Oh they have more room to move (for the immediate time being)... into the negative. Thats where the 10K cash ban, bail in laws and banks sudden "inability" to allow anyone to withdraw large sums of cash will all come quickly together in the worst possible way for the average punter.
Totally agree though - most of the general public think there is just a health crisis going on at the moment. While true - this is just most likely the catalyst that sets off total economic collapse. Either through depression, or, more likely, hyper inflation. All federal reserves that matter have the money printers going at maximum now.
We are now edging closer and closer to people realizing the total con that is going on here and losing complete confidence in Government issued fiat.

Thinking of withdrawing most of my cash from the bank in case it all collapses. Maybe safer under the mattress than in a bank?

If the hyper-inflation to which kingRB referred occurs, any cash you stash under the mattress will be worth less than toilet paper. Maybe that’s why people are hoarding toilet paper!

Indeed LB. It's pretty clear since the GFC governments don't have the stomach to allow a wash out the system with a hard reset (depression) - so on the endless money printing goes. Sorry, economic "stimulus". All evidence leads me to the opinion of an incoming currency crisis.

Depression or hyper inflation, cash in the bank or cash under your mattress you are going to be screwed either way. Do your own due diligence, obviously don't take my word for it - but i'd be getting out of any cash positions and into precious metals / hard stores of value as quickly as you can.

See! Malcolm was right!!!!

The queues at Centrelink seems to illustrate a lack of understanding in this regard. There's only so much they can hand out.

After nearly 30 years without a recession, it's only Australians in their mid 40s and older who have any grasp on what really difficult times are like. For those of us our mid fifties, we would have seen a reasonable amount but still nothing like our parents and grandparents experienced during and after WW2, particularly if they originated from Europe. There seems to be very little resilience and it's surprising to see what's happening this early on in the crisis with Centrelink offices being overwhelmed and panic buying after only a few days. It's like mass hysteria has gripped a large section the country. Other nations seem to be faring better, especially in Asia where there isn't a nanny state mentality.

I feel most sorry for those close to retirement who have had the value of their investments decimated and don't have enough working years left to recover, their golden years won't be quite so shiny. Being broke at 30 is bad enough, at 60 it's a disaster.

A recession is when your neighbour loses his job, a depression is when you lose yours.

One of the other interesting things I will be watching is whether the Federal government continues to try to bring in a few hundred thousand migrants each year, to continue to feed the residential property Ponzi scheme. Won’t it be great when everyone’s house is worth a few million on average. We’ll all be ‘wealthy’.

My guesses (And that’s all they are)

Still pain in 6 months but plenty getting their jobs back before then (in some form)

Quite A few boomers close to retirement pulling the pin early

In 12 months a certain level of normalcy for the drivers, but under a drastically different model for the airlines.

The airlines will use this to aggressively reduce wages and conditions for the next 5-10 years.

people still have a need and want to move around the world and there will be a vaccine within 6 months.

Who knows..

The ‘ boomers’ as you love to call us.. have just had millions knocked of their super. What makes you think we will
be in a position to retire early?

Excellent post and spot on. The importance of self management in these times is real and will mitigate greatly any effects of the virus. I learnt this the hard way with fatigue overwhelming me and compromising my career. I hope people take this opportunity to spend time on yourselves and others while seeking the knowledge that exists to get the mind and body back into its natural state. Im 60 and have never felt better!!

If credit markets lock up physical cash will be 'valuable' It can happen.

Politicians super is protected
 

And whatyou are really going to hate hearing is that all Politicians superannuation is protected under legislation. That means, currently if a pilot has $2m in super, he has probably lost around 10%, or $200k. If a slimey Pollie has $2m in super he has lost.......$0. Plus he isn’t out of a job either. They naturally don’t like people knowing about this huge perk, but it’s true. So now you know why they really don’t give a **** if they crash the economy due to incompetence or deliberately. The Dealer never loses.

Dear lamenting friends,
I am more hopeful than you for the same reason I was pretty sure Greta's BS will not kill air travel
.
There's so many jobs depending on air travel in non-direct way. Travel & leisure industry is obvious - but remember: these are restaurants, car rentals, diving schools, street food vendors, even groceries and pharamcies all around the glob. There are countries which depend mostly on tourism It's also very likely that some many national parks around the glob would be deserted and with most of it's animals killed to decorate houses and feed "traditional Chinsese medicine". I doubt that rhinos of Nepal, gorillas of Virunga and such would survive without rich visitors.

So there will be a lot of effort put to bring tourist back to Barcelona, Venice, Phuket and so on.

Have faith, brothers and sisters.
&

Hope it's true... COVID hitting hard in Spain... mind-blowing. I was hoping to start training in April and I have postponed till October. Hopefully in two years it washes away and we can continue the tendency of growth, but it all depends on how harsh the economical situation is after COVID is no longer a major issue... peoples pockets are going to be empty.

Yeah spain is bad, if you are into aviation youtubers mentour pilot is based in pain is on lockdown atm

credit markets wont be locking up - just look at what the US Federal Reserve announced on sunday night

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/ar...ld-of-leverage

"“there is an infinite amount of cash in the Federal Reserve. We will do whatever we need to do to make sure there’s enough cash in the banking system.”

If that statement alone doesn't chill you to the bone, I don't know what would.

When people start wondering why we pay taxes when Federal Reserves can print "infinite cash" - the system is going to collapse.

Watch that video by the Intercept on that. And for heaps of very, very good investigative journalism, tune in to https://theintercept.com/

Suddenly those people lining up at the gun shops don’t seem quite so stupid.

Yep. They’ve got to keep that Ponzi scheme going until the very last minute. Quantitative easing, zero to negative interest rates, whatever they can do to keep a dead system alive. The USA alone has a likely debt of $250 trillion. The collapse has started and a painful reset is inevitable. The Federal Reserve is a joke, it isn’t even a bank. It’s a private cabal. People don’t even realise that.

It is actually owned by the banks themselves. Congress even studied the interlocking relationships between the banks and directors in 1976: Federal Reserve Directors: A Study of Corporate and Banking Influence : Staff Report for the Committee on Banking, Currency and Housing, House of Representatives, Ninety-Fourth Congress, Second Session

Totally agree and have been doing this for years. However, my concern is that they will ‘pull a Roosevelt’ on the people, again. For those who have mot studied economics or history in general; “Executive Order 6102 is a United States presidential executive order signed on April 5, 1933, by President Franklin D. Roosevelt "forbidding the hoarding of gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates within the continental United States".

The bastards can change any rule or law as and when they see fit. Goal posts that are not set in stone. I do not trust any western Government to ever act honestly and in the best interest of the people. There is always a catch.

If it did happen and they stayed shut, my only response would be ‘about bloody time’.

We could then get on with moving society forward without lingering rubbish from Bronze Age myths.

Here in the US we don't have any viable choice but to travel by air for long distances. I think it'll pick up here sooner and faster. Our passenger rail infrastructure has been purposely neglected to the point of near obsolescence and people aren't interested in a three or four-day drive. How and which US airlines will survive is an interesting thought exercise since regionals tend to be more on the edge, and keeping service on the non-major routes may require regionals to be completely absorbed into the surviving majors. The aircraft are already configured so we'd have to accept the pitch and density inside, though for the interim middle seats could be kept empty, etc.

Regionals will be subsidised if required to maintain essential services. Possibly a single turboprop flight a day but communities won’t be cut off.

Rumour spreading that Cobham to grow and become new domestic competition for QF if VA goes under? I don't see Cobham 737s being a thing but it's just a rumour after all...

Has anyone told Cobham about that!

Would a post COVID19 predicted secular Bear market environment , be conducive for the breaking up of the Qantas / Jetstar bastardised Union ?
A perfect excuse to fend off accusations of a monopoly in the event of Virgin not existing if and when the forced shutdown of the Worlds economy is finally reversed .

Can't see QF giving up their LCC, who would subsequently undercut them with a lower cost base from Day 1. If anything, I'd foresee QF running a diminished Domestic network & leaving most of that to JQ, and JQ running a diminished International network (read Bogan destinations) with QF going back to its roots predominantly.
That's my Nostradamus moment.