Covid-19; Impact on the aviation industry

Irish Steve

jonnny68 wrote: »

Just had a browse on the Dublin airport app, only 15 departure flights since 11.35am this morning but what struck me was i see there are 2 flights to Kerry, one departed at 12.12 today and the other is due to depart at 18.55, am i missing something here, why 2 flights to Kerry of all places?

Flights to Kerry and Donegal are funded by State/EU Public service obligation system, and there's almost certainly rules in the contract that says they have to run, even if no one is using them, otherwise the contract is void.

Inquitus

Sheep Shagger wrote: »

Virgin Australia due to go into administration within the next few hours.

Virgin Atlantic (via Richard Branson) has asked for a £500m loan to tide them over and he will put up his house in the BVI worth £100m as security.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/amp/business-52354865

I would say there are hardly any airlines in the world with a balance sheet strong enough to see them through the COVID-19 crisis without Government assistance.
Some examples would be IAG, Ryanair, Emirates, Qatar, Etihad who have what it takes, the latter 3 because they are bankrolled by their respective Governments anyways.

WishUWereHere

This is a brilliant thread, with incise input by all those who have contributed. I only 'dicovered' it today and for anyone who has time to spare ( who hasn't with this damn lockdown) I recommend going back to the first message and ( keeping in mind what has happened in the intervening days ) start over.

Thanks to everyone who contributed here...am still only on page 2, but already 'hooked'

Blut2

This is pretty illustrative, from today's FT:

MJohnston

Kind of crazy to think that 10 years ago to the day, all of European airspace was shut down due to the Eyjafjallajökull ash cloud. You look at the economic impact from that six day closure, and it's mindboggling to think what seems like at least 6 months of closures will do this time around.

Blut2

MJohnston wrote: »

Kind of crazy to think that 10 years ago to the day, all of European airspace was shut down due to the Eyjafjallajökull ash cloud. You look at the economic impact from that six day closure, and it's mindboggling to think what seems like at least 6 months of closures will do this time around.

I doubt it'll be anywhere near 6 months of closures. Countries across Europe are already starting to roll back quarantine measures, and announce dates for the opening of their borders. And airlines in Asia are also already starting up again.


Michael O'Leary's assessment that flights in Europe will start up again gradually from June, and return to a (definitely reduced) more "normal" level of demand by mid July seems about right.


From that same FT article, on that note:

IngazZagni

Blut2 wrote: »

I doubt it'll be anywhere near 6 months of closures. Countries across Europe are already starting to roll back quarantine measures, and announce dates for the opening of their borders. And airlines in Asia are also already starting up again.


Michael O'Leary's assessment that flights in Europe will start up again gradually from June, and return to a (definitely reduced) more "normal" level of demand by mid July seems about right.


From that same FT article, on that note:........

MOL also predicted that Easter travel would be largely unaffected.
Thats a moving graph too as airlines cancel flights on a week by week basis so that curve may flatten. The opposite of the Covid curve that is.

Irish Steve

Far from wanting to rain on anyone's parade, but the big unknown is IF, and a very BIG IF, the release of lockdown will hold, or if there will be surges in infection numbers that will lead to partial or total reimposition of restrictions on countries that are (bluntly) experiementing with reopening things. There is no science or guidance right now of what will happen as things change, they don't even know for sure if people that have had Covid do have immunity or not, or even if the immunity varies by country.

The other factors are that there will be significant numbers of people who will not be in a position to travel for quite some time to come, if the economies start to recover as some activity is restarted, there will still be large groups of people who will still be in some form or another of lockdown, possibly for as long as 12 months, depending on the progress of the preparation and testing of a vaccine, and also on the ability of the system to test for immunity.

I for one am not madly excited about the possibility of spending time crammed into an aluminium tube with less than optimal air circulation for a number of hours so that I can spend some time in a different place that is likely to have limited facilities for some time to come.

It's very clear that there are some people out there who think that it won't be long before they can return to their planning of a boozy trip to the Spanish resorts, but I suspect they could be in for a nasty awakening, as I would be surprised to see all those sorts of options being available before the winter, and maybe a lot longer, it will only take one country to see a significant surge in new cases for pretty much most others to shut down again until it's clear what's causing that surge.

Restaurants and pubs are going to be a while in some places, and things like night clubs are even more unlikely to be seen as acceptable until the numbers falling ill and dying have been dramatically reduced.

Just to make that clear, while Ireland has indeed managed to flatten the curve significantly, and we have not seen the horrific numbers die that were being predicted, we are currently No 9 in the world league of deaths per million of popluation, so there's no room for any sort of complacency or early easing of the present levels of lock down that we are having to endure.

jonnny68

Irish Steve wrote: »

Flights to Kerry and Donegal are funded by State/EU Public service obligation system, and there's almost certainly rules in the contract that says they have to run, even if no one is using them, otherwise the contract is void.

Didn't know this, bizzare

Deatr

jonnny68 wrote: »

Didn't know this, bizzare

Nothing bizzare about it at all. The road infrastructure to Kerry and to Donegal isn’t the best so that’s why these are PSO routes. There are other routes around Europe that are funded in a similar fashion.

Before anyone loses their minds over the price of oil it is still between 22 and 27 dollars a barrel.

The slump you just saw was for contracts to deliver oil in May, those contracts are up today and June starts tomorrow. Buyers didn’t want to be holding contracts to receive oil they weren’t in a position to be able to store anywhere so were dumping those contracts eventually at 1c a barrel. Some were getting very lucky.

Oil prices for delivery in June is $22 and July $27 a barrel but due demand will also likely slump to sub $10 a barrel. Things ain’t good at all in the oil industry.

addaword

Deatr wrote: »

Nothing bizzare about it at all. The road infrastructure to Kerry and to Donegal isn’t the best so that’s why these are PSO routes. There are other routes around Europe that are funded in a similar fashion.

Poor excuse, they are a waste of taxpayers money. The roads out of Dublin are good enough nowadays. Look at the road from Donegal to Kerry, if that is your criteria why no flight there?

L1011

addaword wrote: »

Poor excuse, they are a waste of taxpayers money. The roads out of Dublin are good enough nowadays. Look at the road from Donegal to Kerry, if that is your criteria why no flight there?

Because there is no demand. And nobody from Kerry is being given essential medical services in Donegal, but people from both are in Dublin for instance.

Sheep Shagger

jonnny68 wrote: »

Didn't know this, bizzare

Its outdated rubbish - 1 flight a day maybe but not 2 if there isn't the demand for both.

Locker10a

L1011 wrote: »

Because there is no demand. And nobody from Kerry is being given essential medical services in Donegal, but people from both are in Dublin for instance.

Yeah exactly, and the PSO routes are seen as a vital element for commerce in both regions
It should also be noted they are, in normal circumstances fairly busy flights full of fare paying passengers

MJohnston

Irish Steve wrote: »

It's very clear that there are some people out there who think that it won't be long before they can return to their planning of a boozy trip to the Spanish resorts, but I suspect they could be in for a nasty awakening, as I would be surprised to see all those sorts of options being available before the winter, and maybe a lot longer, it will only take one country to see a significant surge in new cases for pretty much most others to shut down again until it's clear what's causing that surge.

Nail on head.

I keep saying this, but until there's a vaccine, or perhaps retroviral drugs, available, I strongly believe we'll see massive restrictions on international travel, especially via air. Enforced quarantines, onerous medical checks before departure and after arrival, reduced numbers of seats, etc. These are the only methods we currently have to reduce and contain spread of the virus, so countries will be enforcing them very strongly for fear of having to return to lockdowns.

Then once you get to a destination, you've no guarantee that tourist destinations will be accessible. Hotels maybe and probably restaurants, but probably not bars, and unlikely any entertainment/cultural elements like museums or theme parks.

Countries that are big holiday destinations within Europe, like France, Spain and Italy, have been very badly hit by this pandemic, and are going to be extremely reticent to return to normal quickly.

And this is just the impact on holiday travel - I think the business travel sector will be even slower to return to 'normal', mainly because so many businesses will have figured out ways to incorporate VC meetings instead of in-person meetings, and because most business travel isn't that essential.

basill

Unless the EU takes the lead (which they haven't done to date) then it could potentially be a free for all. Some countries will be imposing prohibitive restrictions whereas others will not. Other countries will be prioritising economics over covid and will be under extreme pressure from their voter base to reopen. The passengers will all be mixing in the destinations and it will matter not one bit.

The biggest elephant in the room will be the US. If for example the EU is unhappy with Trump and his efforts in stemming the pandemic are they going to have the balls to stand up to him and close them off or force them into quarantine on arrival?

California Dreamer

addaword wrote: »

Poor excuse, they are a waste of taxpayers money. The roads out of Dublin are good enough nowadays. Look at the road from Donegal to Kerry, if that is your criteria why no flight there?

I think you have stumbled into the wrong forum. Reverse, turn left and it's the 2nd door on the left to get out. :rolleyes:

addaword

Irish Steve wrote: »

It's very clear that there are some people out there who think that it won't be long before they can return to their planning of a boozy trip to the Spanish resorts, but I suspect they could be in for a nasty awakening, as I would be surprised to see all those sorts of options being available before the winter, and maybe a lot longer, it will only take one country to see a significant surge in new cases for pretty much most others to shut down again until it's clear what's causing that surge.

Restaurants and pubs are going to be a while in some places, and things like night clubs are even more unlikely to be seen as acceptable until the numbers falling ill and dying have been dramatically reduced.

Just to make that clear, while Ireland has indeed managed to flatten the curve significantly, and we have not seen the horrific numbers die that were being predicted, we are currently No 9 in the world league of deaths per million of popluation, so there's no room for any sort of complacency or early easing of the present levels of lock down that we are having to endure.

Agreed. I think all flights everywhere will be impacted. Who would want to sit beside someone who may have Covid 19 for the duration of a flight? What about cleaning handrests, toilets etc? Will it be economically viable? Even last year, for domestic flights, the Irish Taxpayer paid €14 for every passenger that landed in Donegal Airport. All flights, from domestic to long haul, will be impacted for a long time yet.

Cookiemunster

addaword wrote: »

Poor excuse, they are a waste of taxpayers money. The roads out of Dublin are good enough nowadays. Look at the road from Donegal to Kerry, if that is your criteria why no flight there?

You've obviously never been West of Limerick City, which is 100km from Tralee and 110km from Killarney. Because the road is not 'good enough'. The roads between the end of the motorways and Donegal are even worse.

As to why there isn't a flight between Donegal and Kerry. Well neither of them houses the capital and economic powerhouse of the country that people from those poorly connected counties want and need easy access to.

Tenger

Inquitus wrote: »

Why do they bother operating DUB -ORD/JFK/BOS on a daily basis? Is it for Cargo purposes? EIN123 for instance has just taken off and is heading off on its great circle route.

Cargo to/from JFK and ORD.
BOS is on the A321LR and isn't daily.

JL555

basill wrote: »

Unless the EU takes the lead (which they haven't done to date) then it could potentially be a free for all. Some countries will be imposing prohibitive restrictions whereas others will not. Other countries will be prioritising economics over covid and will be under extreme pressure from their voter base to reopen. The passengers will all be mixing in the destinations and it will matter not one bit.

The biggest elephant in the room will be the US. If for example the EU is unhappy with Trump and his efforts in stemming the pandemic are they going to have the balls to stand up to him and close them off or force them into quarantine on arrival?

So far, the US has less recorded cases and deaths associated with Covid 19 than the EU, so it seems to me that the EU has not done a better job so far at stemming the pandemic. Check out the facts here: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

MJohnston

JL555 wrote: »

So far, the US has less recorded cases and deaths associated with Covid 19 than the EU, so it seems to me that the EU has not done a better job so far at stemming the pandemic. Check out the facts here: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

I don't see an EU aggregation anywhere on that page?

JL555

MJohnston wrote: »

I don't see an EU aggregation anywhere on that page?

A calculator helps, don't even have to add all the EU member states in before you get more cases and deaths.

MJohnston

JL555 wrote: »

A calculator helps, don't even have to add all the EU member states in before you get more cases and deaths.

Yeah you might want to look at those trend lines again, but sure...

Irish Steve

JL555 wrote: »

So far, the US has less recorded cases and deaths associated with Covid 19 than the EU, so it seems to me that the EU has not done a better job so far at stemming the pandemic. Check out the facts here: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

Very few countries have done a good job on stemming the pandemic, and the reasons for that will no doubt emerge and be used to beat people round the head once the immediate emergency is over.



Right now, the USA is some way behind in terms of the rise in cases and the overall fatalities, and with some of the things happening there, it could be a while before they get things under control, so while some comparisons can indeed be made, many comparisons of the data are only valid if they are downloaded and then modified to take regard of the time scale, which the quoted site does not do as presented.


The most worrying aspect of the figures as presented is that the deaths per million population here in Ireland are higher than most countries, and that is almost certainly down to the number of people infected in early days when they were asymptomatic, and a lot of that is unfortunately due to school trips to Italy, and probably visitors from Italy for the cancelled 6 nations match, when the severity of the outbreak was not as clear as it has now become.


Ireland cannot afford to release the lockdown any time soon, in that the number of cases is still rising, along with the deaths, even though the rate of spread is declining as a result of the separation that has now been achieved, and it is critical not to end up with more patients in care than the system can cope with, and we are dangerously close to that limit now.



There have been people of all ages who have ignored the lockdown, and they very much have been putting many people at risk as a result, but hopefully, enough people are now taking the lockdown seriously.



I wish I could see a realistic end to this emergency in sight, but it's not there at the moment, and the potential ongoing risks to all of us are still frightening, as there is still no real medical support treatment that is mitigating the severity.

Gael23

JL555 wrote: »

So far, the US has less recorded cases and deaths associated with Covid 19 than the EU, so it seems to me that the EU has not done a better job so far at stemming the pandemic. Check out the facts here: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

Recorded being the key word in that sentence

trellheim

I wish I could see a realistic end to this emergency in sight, but it's not there at the moment, and the potential ongoing risks to all of us are still frightening, as there is still no real medical support treatment that is mitigating the severity.

Agree ; I moan on about certain things but on this I think a lot of people need to understand this. I see a lot of people wanting to do holidays and stuff and I can't see things restarting until we have a safe way to travel , and be rapidly tested

Tenger

JL555 wrote: »

So far, the US has less recorded cases and deaths associated with Covid 19 than the EU, so it seems to me that the EU has not done a better job so far at stemming the pandemic. Check out the facts here: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

Im quite addicted to that page (as well as http://covid19.healthdata.org/sweden )
But as pointed out above the testing in the US is a problem.
As of last Tuesday the US was testing less than Ireland. At that point Germany was testing 15/1000, S.Korea 12/1000, UK 4/1000, Ireland 7/1000 and US was at 6/1000.
They have ramped up testing since then. As of today it was a total of 4.025 million nationwide (as per https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6 )

EDIT; Updated testing numbers from worldmeters.info this morning;
USA 12/1000
UK 7/1000
Italy 23/1000
Spain 19/1000
S Kore 11/1000
Ireland 18/1000
France 7/1000
India 00.2/1000

In addition the US is behind Europe on the timeline. A handful of states haven’t issued a “stay at home” order. Including Nebraska and the Dakotas. Then you have the morons who are protesting against that order.

I would fully agree that this is a massive unknown. When will aviation start to recover, which airlines will be in a position to do so, who will actually want to travel in the early stages, will health concerns forever alter the aviation industry.
I’m thinking 2020 is a complete bust and that summer schedule 2021 will look like winter 2018/19.

Nijmegen

Blut2 wrote: »

I doubt it'll be anywhere near 6 months of closures. Countries across Europe are already starting to roll back quarantine measures, and announce dates for the opening of their borders. And airlines in Asia are also already starting up again.


Michael O'Leary's assessment that flights in Europe will start up again gradually from June, and return to a (definitely reduced) more "normal" level of demand by mid July seems about right.


From that same FT article, on that note:

Just returning to this, I think anyone in the industry using that graph is living more in hope than reality. Airlines are rolling the extension of their cancellations so they don't have to issue refunds or get into rows about travel vouchers. They're also trying to manage expectations with governments, arguing the economy should re-open in some capacity in say June whilst cancelling all your flights isn't going to give you a strong argument. Same for MOL, who referred to the reaction to Covid-19 as "lunacy" on March 3 and viewed the cancellation of the 6 nations game as an overreaction and thought that Easter travel would go ahead as usual. He probably didn't in fact think that, but you have to present a carry on as usual message - and sure look, in the US corporate CEOs are getting their wishes answered about re-opening the economy (while just about any sensible person is groaning in anticipation of the wave of infection and death that will follow).

Short term travel is done and dusted and when we return the long term prospects are for a slow multi-year recovery with a lot of washing out in the industry.