The International Air Transport Association (IATA) released new analysis showing that the damage to air travel from COVID-19 extends into the medium-term and the industry group says that quarantine measures on arrival would further damage confidence in air travel with a risk-based approach of globally harmonized biosecurity measures critical for the restart.
IATA and Tourism Economics modelled two air travel scenarios, with the baseline scenario contingent on domestic markets opening in Q3, with a much slower phased opening of international markets. This would limit the air travel recovery, despite most forecasts pointing toward a strong economic rebound late this year and during 2021.
IATA said that it expected global passenger demand in 2021 to be 24% below 2019 levels and 32% lower than IATA’s October 2019 Air Passenger forecast for 2021, and it does not expect 2019 levels to be exceeded until 2023.
The group’s pessimistic scenario is based on a slower opening of economies and relaxation of travel restrictions, with lockdowns extending into Q3, possibly due to a second wave of the virus. This would further delay the recovery of air travel. In this case, global RPKs in 2021 could be 34% lower than 2019 levels and 41% below our previous forecast for 2021.
“Major stimulus from governments combined with liquidity injections by central banks will boost the economic recovery once the pandemic is under control. But rebuilding passenger confidence will take longer. And even then, individual and corporate travellers are likely to carefully manage travel spend and stay closer to home,” said Alexandre de Juniac, IATA’s chief executive.
IATA strongly urges governments to find alternatives to maintaining or introducing arrival quarantine measures as part of post-pandemic travel restrictions. IATA’s April survey of recent air travellers showed that
“Even in the best of circumstances this crisis will cost many jobs and rob the economy of years of aviation-stimulated growth. To protect aviation’s ability to be a catalyst for the economic recovery, we must not make that prognosis worse by making travel impracticable with quarantine measures. We need a solution for safe travel that addresses two challenges. It must give passengers confidence to travel safely and without undue hassle. And it must give governments confidence that they are protected from importing the virus. Our proposal is for a layering of temporary non-quarantine measures until we have a vaccine, immunity passports or nearly instant COVID-19 testing available at scale,” said de Juniac.
IATA’s proposal for a temporary risk-based layered approach to provide governments with the confidence to open their border without quarantining arrivals.
The mutual recognition of agreed measures is critical for the resumption of international travel. This is a key deliverable of the COVID-19 Aviation Recovery Task Force (CART) of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).
“CART has a very big job to do with little time to waste. It must find an agreement among states on the measures needed to control COVID-19 as aviation re-starts. And it must build confidence among governments that borders can be opened to travellers because a layered approach of measures has been properly implemented globally. IATA and the whole industry support this critical work,” said de Juniac.