Covid-19; Impact on the aviation industry

trellheim

I'm presuming there's no EASA/European Commission regulation on airplance social distancing.

Jack1985

Social distancing is boll*x on aircraft but airlines will have to follow along with bureaucracy. I note, nobody mentions anything about crew required to move around the cabin passing aisle seats.

cson

Anyone flying is just going to have to accept the risks tbqh. You've no right to a row to yourself or an empty middle seat.

Over here in the US loads are beginning to creep up now that airlines have somewhat right sized the fleets and networks in addition to more folks being comfortable taking a risk to travel.

That being said, in the absence of unencumbered travel (i.e. no quarantine & access to foreign pax) I do not see long haul recovering even half of what it was until there is a vaccine.

bk

Jack1985 wrote: »

The targeting by RTE amongst others of an EI flight from BHD to LHR raised more questions of those travelling (none of whom were wearing masks) than the airline. Airlines are responsible for safety, but adults are responsible for good hygine and protecting themselves in public too in terms of Health guidance, although safe to say the UK's response has been shody at best in relation to public health guidance.

I wouldn't blame the passengers, I'd blame the government and the airlines.

The government and Irish health authorities are WAY behind the curve about the effectiveness of masks. Asian countries were screaming about the importance of them since early January and the Czech Republic showed the effectiveness of them since over a month and a half ago. Yet only now we are only very half heartedly following suit for some bizarre, insane reason.

A month ago various Irish Doctors were on RTE saying that wearing masks was actually dangerous and not to wear them!!

As a result people are understandably confused on the matter.

So the airlines will now need to take a hard line on it. You have to wear a mask or your not boarding and you have to wear it for the entire flight.

Jack1985 wrote: »

CNN ran a story a couple of days ago showing the effect a mask has on spreading a viral load, associated risk with a full load showed significantly reduced spread when wearing a mask to minimal levels.

Yep, a 12 fold reduction in the rate of infection, if 80% people wear masks, according to a very conservative study.

goingnowhere wrote: »

The 'social distance' is a made up thing. The science lacks proper evaluation and is highly specific to the location conditions and is applied differently in different countries, Ireland is 2m, Germany 1.5m.

Agreed. Funnily enough, what the Irish signs actually say is 2 meters or 6 feet. 6 feet is actually 1.82 meters.

The research this is based on is actually from the 1940's, but now has been found to be relatively inaccurate as you say.

We now know that a cough travels up to 6 meters and a sneeze 8 meters.

This is seen with the case of the lady with SARS on a 737 flight. See infected people up to 7 rows, much further then 2 meters.

goingnowhere wrote: »

Now if you issue everyone with a N95 or better mask + a face shield, I'll be on the first flight out of here to a safe country.

Agreed.

smurfjed wrote: »

None of which impact the airlines revenue so I wouldn’t expect the government to get involved.

Of course it does! The only reason there are as many cabin crew as there are is because of the safety rule that says one cabin crew per 50 passengers.

You can guarantee that there would be only one or zero cabin crew on a Ryanair flight if they could get away with it.

The entire airline industry is tied up in safety rules enforced by the likes of the FAA, EASA, IAA, which are government bodies and very much have an impact on airlines revenue (rightfully so).

smurfjed wrote: »

Has anyone analysed the airflow patterns within various aircraft, would 2 meters be sufficient? Until i see such research I would consider this “requirement” as window dressing!

The research in the article linked earlier would show that 2 meters is nowhere near sufficient and that yes, it is just "window dressing" or "security theatre".

We have to hope that alternatives like masks and/or far UV ligth are found to be sufficient.

Because if they aren't, the alternative isn't that we just ignore this rule, the alternative is that air travel gets shutdown almost completely...

cson wrote: »

Anyone flying is just going to have to accept the risks tbqh. You've no right to a row to yourself or an empty middle seat.

The problem is that it isn't just them accepting the risk. The risk is too the whole community and spreading it between countries.

If major new outbreaks are found to come from airline travel, then you can be certain that the people of Ireland (and every country) will demand that at the very least, proper 14 days quarantines on all incoming flights will be enforced or air travel shutdown completely.

That would be a disaster to the airline industry. They really need to find ways that actually work and aren't just window dressing.

Beechwoodspark

I really don’t know why all flights into Ireland have not been cancelled in these circumstances.

Tenger

Beechwoodspark wrote: »

I really don’t know why all flights into Ireland have not been cancelled in these circumstances.

PPE cargo flights
Repatriation of Irish citizens stranded abroad
Irish medical staff returning home
Freight import from online shopping
International mail and parcel services
That pesky Common Travel Area with our larger neighbour

Sheep Shagger

Tenger wrote: »

PPE cargo flights
Repatriation of Irish citizens stranded abroad
Irish medical staff returning home
Freight import from online shopping
International mail and parcel services
That pesky Common Travel Area with our larger neighbour

Why couldn't the number of flights be cut right back though, do we really need daily flights between the UK and Ireland, why not a handful a week?

LXFlyer

Sheep Shagger wrote: »

Why couldn't the number of flights be cut right back though, do we really need daily flights between the UK and Ireland, why not a handful a week?

Again, as already pointed out on this forum you do realise that Aer Lingus are primarily carrying belly cargo on the flights between Heathrow and Dublin (in both directions), that’s coming through the global cargo hub there.

The fact that people can fly on them is almost a side issue and are pretty much limited to those that Tenger has listed above.

L1011

Beechwoodspark wrote: »

I really don’t know why all flights into Ireland have not been cancelled in these circumstances.

I would strongly suggest you stop reading this forum considering it vexes you so

Podge_irl

Sheep Shagger wrote: »

Why couldn't the number of flights be cut right back though, do we really need daily flights between the UK and Ireland, why not a handful a week?

The number of flights quite clearly have been massively cut back. There are probably around 40 flights between London and Dublin on a normal day.

smurfjed

The latest FAA SAFO states:

Further, to slow the spread of the virus, the CDC recommends the use of cloth face coverings while in public places and when social distancing is not practicable.

They do not have a requirement to leave seats empty.

smurfjed

The future of training centres ??

The wearing of face coverings while in public areas is encouraged at all times. They may be removed in classrooms where social distancing (min 2m) is able to be maintained
• Clients attending for simulator training will be required to wear N95/FFP2 disposable face masks at all times in the simulator. Use of gloves is encouraged
• Social distancing (2m) is to be maintained throughout the Centre. If social distancing cannot be maintained, then PPE shall be worn

Irish Steve

smurfjed wrote: »

The future of training centres ??

Security checks are going (NOT) to be fun going forward, will they expect people to replace a mask/gloves if they have to be taken off for photo validation at security checks? Could mean a whole new quantity of extra gubbins to be carried/searched in the flight bag for some time to come. Will PPE in a flight bag be regarded as "contaminated" if it's handled by an airside scan search. Potential nightmare!

stephenjmcd

https://twitter.com/ingridmileyRTE/status/1262717199279628290?s=19

TheDriver

Got a schedule change of 2 hours for late July so Ryanair are planning their schedule behind the scenes.

Poochie05

Got an email from Finnair, they have updated their traffic plan for July to March 2021, so they are looking in to next year.

https://www.finnair.com/en/flight-information/travel-updates

Some routes are entirely cancelled for the duration (Dublin not on that list)

Sheep Shagger

Podge_irl wrote: »

The number of flights quite clearly have been massively cut back. There are probably around 40 flights between London and Dublin on a normal day.

I get that but IMO there are still too many across all routes for so called 'essential travel,'.

Irish Steve

Sheep Shagger wrote: »

I get that but IMO there are still too many across all routes for so called 'essential travel,'.

That's been made very clear, you are entitled to your opinion, but it would seem that the managements of the airlines operating the services don't agree with you. If you feel that strongly about it, the best plan would be to make such representations to your local representatives, and let them pass that on up the line to the relevant people who are making the decisions. Constantly going round the same loop here will not change anything, it's already been stated numerous times that the main reason for operating most of the flights is to provide essential mail and cargo movement facilities.



On that basis, please move on and don't go round the same loop again.

Nijmegen

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-52723107

9,000 jobs to go at Rolls-Royce, mainly in civil aerospace. Almost 20% of its workforce. Just me or is 20% starting to feel like the standard cut?

smurfjed

Is there any reason why companies don’t try other options such as cutting hours or job sharing, is there a negative side to this financially to these companies?

kona

smurfjed wrote: »

Is there any reason why companies don’t try other options such as cutting hours or job sharing, is there a negative side to this financially to these companies?

When most of your staff could be paying crazy amounts of money for rent or mortgage, who is going to agree to half time for more than a few months? Its of no benefit to anybody if the writing is on the wall.

Kcormahs

kona wrote: »

When most of your staff could be paying crazy amounts of money for rent or mortgage, who is going to agree to half time for more than a few months? Its of no benefit to anybody if the writing is on the wall.

what about the staff being let go who also have mortgages? its not even half time what they will receive

kona

Kcormahs wrote: »

what about the staff being let go who also have mortgages? its not even half time what they will receive

They can recieve welfare and possibly a redundancy and the oppertunity to find another job or upskill perhaps.

With half time your just being strung along not earning what you should.

Its only my opinion, i dont want to upset anybody as im sure its a sensitive subject at the moment.

Storm 10

kona wrote: »

They can recieve welfare and possibly a redundancy and the oppertunity to find another job or upskill perhaps.

With half time your just being strung along not earning what you should.

Its only my opinion, i dont want to upset anybody as im sure its a sensitive subject at the moment.

Welfare and another job good luck with that one

kona

Storm 10 wrote: »

Welfare and another job good luck with that one

Well smart ass, welfare and a job is the situation everybody is in.

smurfjed

Kcormahs wrote: »

what about the staff being let go who also have mortgages? its not even half time what they will receive

What about the higher paid people who could afford it?

kona

smurfjed wrote: »

What about the higher paid people who could afford it?

Well how much longer can they be happy to go on half time. Their standard of living will be half, their pensions will be down too, which id assume will be something coming into focus if they are around long enough to be able to afford to live on half pay.

Looking into longer terms, from this point to when people will be back flying with any sort of normality they reckon is almost a year away if we get a vaccine. I dont think many people who are of the calibre to earn large enough salaries , will be happy to sit around on half pay in the hope things pick up, their education and skills are probably transferable to other industries.

Blut2

smurfjed wrote: »

Is there any reason why companies don’t try other options such as cutting hours or job sharing, is there a negative side to this financially to these companies?

I would have thought the same - in the RR example they're cutting under 20% of staff. A 20% reduction in hours along with a 20% reduction in salary instead would be palatable for most people. After tax for a lot of people that would only be a ~10% net income reduction. Some would struggle, but most could tighten their belts a little and get through it.

It would give the company much more flexibility to scale up rapidly in the future as demand returns too, rather than having to go through an expensive hiring process.

I would guess it depends on how high the non-wage costs per employee are to the company. They could drive up the costs of keeping people 'unnecessarily' on staff, even if the wage bill goes down.

That and/or companies could be using this as an excuse to downsize roles they had planned to get rid of for a while. And/or they might not be expecting an economic recovery for years, so wouldn't see any need to avoid a potential expensive hiring process any time soon.

IngazZagni

smurfjed wrote: »

Is there any reason why companies don’t try other options such as cutting hours or job sharing, is there a negative side to this financially to these companies?

A lot of the time companies don't really have an intention of sacking as many people that they announce. A lot of the time it is to exert maximum pressure on unions to accept major long term pay and conditions cuts for everyone.

Podge_irl

Blut2 wrote: »

I would have thought the same - in the RR example they're cutting under 20% of staff. A 20% reduction in hours along with a 20% reduction in salary instead would be palatable for most people. After tax for a lot of people that would only be a ~10% net income reduction. Some would struggle, but most could tighten their belts a little and get through it.

The 20% cuts are not evenly spread across the company. Entire teams/departments will be gutted and others left relatively unscathed.