Covid-19; Impact on the aviation industry

fr336

Just watching an interview with Michael O'Leary from a few weeks ago where he said that with everything grounded Ryanair is still spending 60 million Euros a week. Silly question but could anyone spell out exactly what they're spending on? I can guess but would be nice to have someone more knowledgeable along!

Inquitus

fr336 wrote: »

Just watching an interview with Michael O'Leary from a few weeks ago where he said that with everything grounded Ryanair is still spending 60 million Euros a week. Silly question but could anyone spell out exactly what they're spending on? I can guess but would be nice to have someone more knowledgeable along!

Aircraft depreciation, leasing fees, maintenance, back office, fixed costs that don't go away even if you are not flying.

fr336

Inquitus wrote: »

Aircraft depreciation, leasing fees, maintenance, back office, fixed costs that don't go away even if you are not flying.

Thanks, think he said they have enough cash until Spring 2021 even if they stayed grounded (not likely).

Inquitus

fr336 wrote: »

Thanks, think he said they have enough cash until Spring 2021 even if they stayed grounded (not likely).

They do, they have the most solid footing of pretty much any airline, but burning 60m a month of your balance sheet is not appealing to anyone.

smurfjed

Calina wrote: »

What is the latest on the EI redundancy story? Seems to have gone quiet although I might just have missed news.

There were two videos released today, one for IFS and the other Ground Handling, talking about changes in working practices. For IFS this included a change in working levels and practices. Shannon crew are being released, and others can expect rosters with 30% (30% salary) starting June 21.

Ground services are changing working practices, didn’t talk about contract hours or layoffs.

It appears that management are doing all that they can to avoid redundancies, but can someone survive on 30% of their salaries as i assume in June the Government payment shall stop.

Good luck to all of them in these terrible times.

stephenjmcd

Calina wrote: »

I guess I won't be getting home any time soon. Luxair restarts flights to 5 destinations on Friday and we expect border controls to lift internally for most of Schengen on 15 June. But the 14 day isolation in Ireland rules things out unless the CTA is dumped

What is the latest on the EI redundancy story? Seems to have gone quiet although I might just have missed news.

There is no 14 day isolation here, it's only a recommendation, its law to fill in the passenger locator form and thats it.

stephenjmcd

MJohnston wrote: »

Another data point against leisure flights happening in Ireland any time soon:

https://twitter.com/gavreilly/status/1265691069464948738?s=21

Good luck to the CMO, serious pressure will come on either Leo or the next government to get rid of this when the rest of the EU is opening up. At the moment they're essentially strangling any hope that aviation and hospitality had in Ireland for later in the summer

MJohnston

stephenjmcd wrote: »

Good luck to the CMO, serious pressure will come on either Leo or the next government to get rid of this when the rest of the EU is opening up. At the moment they're essentially strangling any hope that aviation and hospitality had in Ireland for later in the summer

Maybe, maybe not. The potential to eradicate the virus entirely from the country likely has many more internal economic benefits than could be gained from opening up to international tourism again. Hospitality is going to be subject to massively damaging distancing requirements as long as the virus is still spreading, for example.

donkey balls

Was talking to a snr manager in work yesterday evening, He knows about my back ground working in aviation and were talking about meetings wether they be Skype or Zoom.
He made a point of big companies paying biz class fares for employees to attend meetings, He reckons such flights will be a thing of the past.
Considering you have all these video conference tools available, He travels a fair bit himself so not sure if its a way for him not to travel.
We also talked about wearing masks on flights and both of us reckon they are to uncomfortable to wear for a long period of time.
And could you imagine trying to keep the mask on young children near impossible.On another note we have noticed a pick up in one part of the business since the lifting of some restrictions hopefully this will spread to all industries.

Cookiemunster

MJohnston wrote: »

Maybe, maybe not. The potential to eradicate the virus entirely from the country likely has many more internal economic benefits than could be gained from opening up to international tourism again. Hospitality is going to be subject to massively damaging distancing requirements as long as the virus is still spreading, for example.

To eradicate the virus and keep it out you'd need to stop all travel, not just tourism. That's not possible as our whole economy is based on trading overseas. Plus we have an open border with our nearest neighbour, who have one of the worst infections rates in the world. Eradication is a pipe dream IMO.

MJohnston

Cookiemunster wrote: »

To eradicate the virus and keep it out you'd need to stop all travel, not just tourism. That's not possible as our whole economy is based on trading overseas. Plus we have an open border with our nearest neighbour, who have one of the worst infections rates in the world. Eradication is a pipe dream IMO.

I don't think it's a pipe dream at all, especially given that several other countries similar to us have managed it. Yes, we're reliant on the North, but they're not following the same path as their motherland anymore.

It wouldn't even need to be full eradication, just bringing infection numbers low enough that you can reset to the containment phase which could mean much less internal locking down.

If that was close enough within our grasp, I don't think the concerns of the aviation industry would be listened to.

Blut2

MJohnston wrote: »

I don't think it's a pipe dream at all, especially given that several other countries similar to us have managed it. Yes, we're reliant on the North, but they're not following the same path as their motherland anymore.

It wouldn't even need to be full eradication, just bringing infection numbers low enough that you can reset to the containment phase which could mean much less internal locking down.

If that was close enough within our grasp, I don't think the concerns of the aviation industry would be listened to.

The problem isn't eradicating the virus in Ireland, this is in theory possible given enough time and effort (though the resulting economic problems might make this nonviable as a plan, given it could take months).

The problem is that the virus is not going be eradicated around the world at the exact same time, or likely ever. So its inevitably going to get back in.

There are currently no checks, or quarantines, whatsoever on people entering Ireland from N.I. And no checks, or quarantines, for people entering N.I. from the rest of the UK. So we effectively right now have a fully open border to the worst outbreak on the continent.

But its not even just Northern Ireland - its the entire rest of the planet. At this stage we now know there isn't a hope in hell that the US, or any developing country, successfully eradicates the virus. Which means they're just going to reinfect any country that does, whenever that country eventually opens its borders. And no country can keep its borders closed indefinitely for years without facing complete economic ruin.

Which means theres just no point in completely destroying the economy to eradicate the virus, when its just going to be back in the country within a month or two of us opening our borders anyway.

Sheep Shagger

donkey balls wrote: »

Was talking to a snr manager in work yesterday evening, He knows about my back ground working in aviation and were talking about meetings wether they be Skype or Zoom.
He made a point of big companies paying biz class fares for employees to attend meetings, He reckons such flights will be a thing of the past.
Considering you have all these video conference tools available, He travels a fair bit himself so not sure if its a way for him not to travel.
We also talked about wearing masks on flights and both of us reckon they are to uncomfortable to wear for a long period of time.
And could you imagine trying to keep the mask on young children near impossible.On another note we have noticed a pick up in one part of the business since the lifting of some restrictions hopefully this will spread to all industries.

Whatever about business class fares, think day trips and over night trips to the likes of Lux as scheduled flight times don't allow same day trips will be a thing of the past.

Obviously will still happen but on a much lesser scale, going to London for a 2 hour meeting has a lot of wasted travelling time where you could do spend just the 2 hours on it.

On the last bit, kids under 13 don't (currently) need to wear masks even on board an aircraft.

fr336

The funny thing about people who now say "oh the virus is everywhere we can't stop it now just got to get on with things" is I can't help but thin k many of the same people didn't want to even take small measures back in February/March which could have put a halt on this in many countries. The mantra has always been to keep the economy going even if shutting down parts of the economy back then could have meant we could keep the rest of it open. As it turned out, most of the country has had to be locked up for 3 months and counting because of this attitude. I'm really hoping the virus will just burn itself out or something as humans can't be relied upon to not make exactly the same errors just a few months after the initial ones. Hell if everyone had had a bit of cop on and worn face coverings etc back at the start maybe even the travel industry would still be moving along nicely! Ah well.

MJohnston

Blut2 wrote: »

The problem isn't eradicating the virus in Ireland, this is in theory possible given enough time and effort (though the resulting economic problems might make this nonviable as a plan, given it could take months).

The problem is that the virus is not going be eradicated around the world at the exact same time, or likely ever. So its inevitably going to get back in.

There are currently no checks, or quarantines, whatsoever on people entering Ireland from N.I. And no checks, or quarantines, for people entering N.I. from the rest of the UK. So we effectively right now have a fully open border to the worst outbreak on the continent.

But its not even just Northern Ireland - its the entire rest of the planet. At this stage we now know there isn't a hope in hell that the US, or any developing country, successfully eradicates the virus. Which means they're just going to reinfect any country that does, whenever that country eventually opens its borders. And no country can keep its borders closed indefinitely for years without facing complete economic ruin.

Which means theres just no point in completely destroying the economy to eradicate the virus, when its just going to be back in the country within a month or two of us opening our borders anyway.

Except literally all of what you just said assumes that we need to reopen our borders.

My argument is merely that the economic benefits of eradicating the virus, given how close we are to doing so, drastically outweigh the economic benefits of hastily reopening our borders again.

Conversely, the economic drawbacks of a second wave are magnitudes worse than the economic drawbacks of being overly cautious with reopening borders.

In other words - what's the rush?

Cookiemunster

MJohnston wrote: »

Except literally all of what you just said assumes that we need to reopen our borders.

My argument is merely that the economic benefits of eradicating the virus, given how close we are to doing so, drastically outweigh the economic benefits of hastily reopening our borders again.

Conversely, the economic drawbacks of a second wave are magnitudes worse than the economic drawbacks of being overly cautious with reopening borders.

In other words - what's the rush?

But we DO need to reopen our borders. Without international trade we have NO economy. As it is without only tourism the economy loses 6% of it's GDP. That alone is massive. Without a functioning economy then the money is not there to pay for the HSE or for the Covid payments etc.

And to ignore the elephant in the room of the open border with NI by saying that they are 'not following the same path as their motherland anymore' completely turns a blind eye to the fact they are actually the same worst infected country in Europe which is currently easing internal travel restrictions.

MJohnston

Cookiemunster wrote: »

But we DO need to reopen our borders. Without international trade we have NO economy. As it is without only tourism the economy loses 6% of it's GDP. That alone is massive. Without a functioning economy then the money is not there to pay for the HSE or for the Covid payments etc.

Where did I mention anything about restricting trade?

As for tourism, again, global tourism isn't the only part of that that's restricted right now. With restricted borders, tourism could still see substantial figures from people staying within Ireland for holidays.

Cookiemunster wrote: »

And to ignore the elephant in the room of the open border with NI by saying that they are 'not following the same path as their motherland anymore' completely turns a blind eye to the fact they are actually the same worst infected country in Europe which is currently easing internal travel restrictions.

This is a weird paragraph, to be honest. You want me to address the elephant in the room, but at the same time you're unwilling to admit that the UK has very much acted as a divided set of nations in their responses to the pandemic?

And still, none of this explains why we need to rapidly reopen our borders.

TheDriver

MJohnston wrote: »

I don't think it's a pipe dream at all, especially given that several other countries similar to us have managed it. Yes, we're reliant on the North, but they're not following the same path as their motherland anymore.

It wouldn't even need to be full eradication, just bringing infection numbers low enough that you can reset to the containment phase which could mean much less internal locking down.

If that was close enough within our grasp, I don't think the concerns of the aviation industry would be listened to.

To eradicate the virus, we need to be like Spain's lockdown with full policing. Having tons of teenagers around together and shops making up their own rules aka homeware is hardware and kids in estates playing together, it makes a lot of the current rules by the CMO seem a joke. Traffic is busy on the roads, plenty going well beyond 5km, house parties on the go. The game is up as far as I am concerned re keeping people compliant to a lockdown.

Cookiemunster

MJohnston wrote: »

Where did I mention anything about restricting trade?

As for tourism, again, global tourism isn't the only part of that that's restricted right now. With restricted borders, tourism could still see substantial figures from people staying within Ireland for holidays.

I already pointed out to you that the only effective way to eradicate the virus was to close all borders not just to tourism. There are still thousands of people entering and leaving the country every day. And these people are exempt from the upcoming 14 days quarantine making it pointless.

MJohnston wrote: »

This is a weird paragraph, to be honest. You want me to address the elephant in the room, but at the same time you're unwilling to admit that the UK has very much acted as a divided set of nations in their responses to the pandemic?
And still, none of this explains why we need to rapidly reopen our borders.

It doesn't matter an iota that they 'acted' as individual countries when they are in fact the same country and there is already unchecked travel between NI and the rest of the UK (full flights have been in the news pretty recently) with internal travel restriction currently being wound down while they're still the worst performing country in Europe.

It quite simply isn't possible to fully eradicate it. And as Blut2 said the moment you do open up, without a vaccine, the cases will inevitably start appearing again as other counties wont have eradicated it. Even if that's this time next year. We need to learn to live with it as there may never actually be a vaccine. Trying to eradicate it with continued lockdown will destroy the economy and more people will end up dying unneccessarily from non Covid conditions than died with it.

MJohnston

Cookiemunster wrote: »

And as Blut2 said the moment you do open up, without a vaccine, the cases will inevitably start appearing again as other counties wont have eradicated it. Even if that's this time next year. We need to learn to live with it as there may never actually be a vaccine. Trying to eradicate it with continued lockdown will destroy the economy and more people will end up dying unneccessarily from non Covid conditions than died with it.

You keep dismissing my point whilst also saying things that back it up. Perhaps I'm not explaining myself correctly, so let's try it again:

1. A second wave from the virus will almost certainly cause a return to the April-style lockdown measures.
2. We're very close to suppressing the virus - I'll avoid the word "eradication" as that has a specific connotation I suppose.
3. Suppressing the virus will allow us to move back to the containment phase, with localised mitigation whenever R0 surges in a part of the country.
4. If we are in containment rather than suppression, we will be able to have more parts of the internal economy operating in a fashion that's closer to normal - and that includes internal tourism.
5. Opening borders to external tourists will significantly increase our potential exposure to the virus, increasing the chances of a second wave.
6. A return to an April-style lockdown will damage the aviation and tourism sectors, but also most of retail, construction, education, hospitality, entertainment, arts, and even manufacturing.
7. Maintaining restrictions on travel for the island will cause damage to some of these sectors, but on a much lower scale.

If you want to disagree with any of these assertions, please do, but I think they're pretty solid. It's how you put them together that seems to be the disagreement here.

What others have been saying is that pressure from aviation and tourism sectors will cause the government to go against the advice of health officials and reopen borders.

What I'm saying is that the calculus is far from that simple. Personally I think it's fairly clear that reopening our borders will increase our chances of facing an even longer lockdown phase in the long-run, which as you say will:

"destroy the economy and more people will end up dying unneccessarily from non Covid conditions than died with it."

So I don't know that I see the pressure from aviation outweighing every other sector that will be much more at risk from open borders. I think the tourism sector is probably somewhat divided over whether it's better to roll the dice and re-open borders, or hope that internal tourism can stem some of the bleeding.

Blut2

MJohnston wrote: »

Except literally all of what you just said assumes that we need to reopen our borders.

My argument is merely that the economic benefits of eradicating the virus, given how close we are to doing so, drastically outweigh the economic benefits of hastily reopening our borders again.

Conversely, the economic drawbacks of a second wave are magnitudes worse than the economic drawbacks of being overly cautious with reopening borders.

In other words - what's the rush?

If you're arguing from the premise that we don't need to ever reopen our borders then I'm afraid your entire argument is rather nonsensical. Do you propose Ireland turns into North Korea?

(and do note even North Korea, the most closed off country on the planet, still managed to get itself infected - so that level of hermit kingdom border control wouldn't even guarantee no re-infection).

Because, again, as long as the virus is active elsewhere on the planet then it is going to re-spread, there is going to be a second wave. This not an if or a maybe. Its going to happen.

And - again - you're completing ignoring the fact that our borders are currently open to the country with the worst infection in Europe. A land border that tens of thousands of people cross every day. We have absolutely no way of stopping reinfection given this.

fr336

Blut2 wrote: »

If you're arguing from the premise that we don't need to ever reopen our borders then I'm afraid your entire argument is rather nonsensical. Do you propose Ireland turns into North Korea?

That's not what he said, is it. It's been 3 months. Getting back to normal is going to be hard, it can't be done with sheer hope. If people want the majority of the economy back open certain sacrifices are still going to have to be made. The virus doesn't care about the economy or people's holidays. There are choices here, nothing else - the choice is to open too quickly and risk a second peak with all the deaths and economic chaos that brings. Or a slower, short term disruption to get back to normal.

MJohnston

Blut2 wrote: »

If you're arguing from the premise that we don't need to ever reopen our borders then I'm afraid your entire argument is rather nonsensical. Do you propose Ireland turns into North Korea?

(and do note even North Korea, the most closed off country on the planet, still managed to get itself infected - so that level of hermit kingdom border control wouldn't even guarantee no re-infection).

Because, again, as long as the virus is active elsewhere on the planet then it is going to re-spread, there is going to be a second wave. This not an if or a maybe. Its going to happen.

And - again - you're completing ignoring the fact that our borders are currently open to the country with the worst infection in Europe. A land border that tens of thousands of people cross every day. We have absolutely no way of stopping reinfection given this.

Crikey, that's a wild misrepresentation of what I posted. With that, I'm out!

bk

I know it is probably very unpopular opinion on this particular forum, but I have to say I very much agree with MJohnston's points here and I was only thinking the same myself a few days ago.

Basically what we are talking about is following the New Zealand model. They have been able to almost completely suppress the virus and as a result they have almost been able to completely reopen, including even bars and restaurants and now their economy is booming.

Even lots of big Hollywood movie and TV productions are moving there as a result. Since they can film with minimum risk and disruption.

Of course this only works with them strictly controlling their borders. They are still open, but there is a very strict and enforced 14 day quarantine.

Sure this reduces the amount of tourism they get. Though seemingly they are seeing loads of tourists from Australia as the 14 day quarantine doesn't apply to them due to also largely controlling the virus.

I know tough on people in this forum who would be hurt. But tourism makes up just 6% of our economy. I agree with MJohnston that either way tourism in Ireland is fecked for the next year or more. The question is if we leave it impact the rest of the economy or not?

I think if you were to take a vote on it, the majority of Irish people would prefer highly controlled borders, with the virus suppressed and everything open in Ireland, then open borders, the virus spreading widely and lots of continued restrictions.

HTCOne

bk wrote: »

I know it is probably very unpopular opinion on this particular forum, but I have to say I very much agree with MJohnston's points here and I was only thinking the same myself a few days ago.

Basically what we are talking about is following the New Zealand model. They have been able to almost completely suppress the virus and as a result they have almost been able to completely reopen, including even bars and restaurants and now their economy is booming.

Even lots of big Hollywood movie and TV productions are moving there as a result. Since they can film with minimum risk and disruption.

Of course this only works with them strictly controlling their borders. They are still open, but there is a very strict and enforced 14 day quarantine.

Sure this reduces the amount of tourism they get. Though seemingly they are seeing loads of tourists from Australia as the 14 day quarantine doesn't apply to them due to also largely controlling the virus.

I know tough on people in this forum who would be hurt. But tourism makes up just 6% of our economy. I agree with MJohnston that either way tourism in Ireland is fecked for the next year or more. The question is if we leave it impact the rest of the economy or not?

I think if you were to take a vote on it, the majority of Irish people would prefer highly controlled borders, with the virus suppressed and everything open in Ireland, then open borders, the virus spreading widely and lots of continued restrictions.

The problem with comparing us to NZ is they don’t have on open land border with the UK, which as we know is a cluster**** that isn’t getting any better. If it weren’t for that I would totally agree with your points. As it is, with the mixing of British and NI folks and them crossing the border without any checks, I feel a second wave is absolutely inevitable. I honestly think it’ll come to a point where the best thing to do is pay everyone with an underlying condition to isolate themselves and the rest of us just get on with it.

Tenger

HTCOne wrote: »

The problem with comparing us to NZ is they don’t have on open land border with the UK, which as we know is a cluster**** that isn’t getting any better................

Christ!! The amount of times I had to state that factoid on Facebook as about a dozen of my Facebook friends posted up that comparison between NZ and Ireland.

Jack1985

bk wrote: »

But tourism makes up just 6% of our economy.

That's, as of 2019, a €6bn value gamble with over 260,000 jobs (not including secondary) attached to it. Alone it contributes over €2bn to Government books.

Podge_irl

Considering the border with NI will never (likely) be closed, good luck stopping Irish people from looking at travel happening all over Europe with no closed borders anywhere in a month or so and having them decide "screw this ****, I'll just travel via Belfast".

bk

HTCOne wrote: »

The problem with comparing us to NZ is they don’t have on open land border with the UK, which as we know is a cluster**** that isn’t getting any better. If it weren’t for that I would totally agree with your points. As it is, with the mixing of British and NI folks and them crossing the border without any checks, I feel a second wave is absolutely inevitable. I honestly think it’ll come to a point where the best thing to do is pay everyone with an underlying condition to isolate themselves and the rest of us just get on with it.

Of course, this only works if we get agreement with the Northern Ireland Executive to do the same and enforce the same rules.

We have already seen the NI diverge from English policy and align closer with Ireland. It is more difficult, but no reason why it couldn't work.

Properly enforced 14 day quarantine for anyone entering the island of Ireland.

It is in as much NI's benefit and interest as it is in ours.

Jack1985 wrote: »

That's, as of 2019, a €6bn value gamble with over 260,000 jobs (not including secondary) attached to it. Alone it contributes over €2bn to Government books.

A drop in the ocean in the ocean versus the €376 billion overall economy.

We have already spent €5 billion extra in the last 12 weeks on Covid19 payments alone!

Also, that is the entire tourism industry. If we suppressed the virus and reopened internally, a lot of people would decide to holiday in Ireland, go to hotels here, visit restaurants and pubs. Sure it wouldn't quiet match the normal tourist season, but lets be honest, that isn't happening either way. Either way the tourist season is fecked this summer.

I actually believe the tourist industry would do better this summer, if the virus is suppressed and the local economy opened up, then if the virus is left to spread and brought back into the country by international travel.

Of course the airline industry would suffer worse then the rest, but it would be better for the rest of the economy and perhaps much of the rest of the tourism industry.

There seems to be this bizarre notion, that we can ignore the virus and the economy will continue to operate fine. I can't believe people are still believing this. It is now quite clear, that things won't go back to normal until you properly suppress the virus.

Jack1985

bk wrote: »

A drop in the ocean in the ocean versus the €376 billion overall economy.

Quite a statement.