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As coronavirus vaccines began rolling out late last year, there was a palpable sense of excitement. People started browsing travel websites and airlines became optimistic about the plane again. Ryanair Holdings Plc even launched a ‘Jab & Go’ campaign alongside images of 20 years on vacation, drinks in hand.
It doesn’t work that way.
For starters, it’s not clear whether vaccines actually stop travelers from spreading the disease, even if they are less likely to catch it themselves. The shots have also not been proven against the more infectious mutant strains that have prompted governments from Australia to the UK to close rather than open borders. An ambitious push by carriers for digital medical passports to replace mandatory quarantines that kill travel demand is also fraught with challenges and has yet to convince the World Health Organization.
This grim reality has pushed back expectations of a significant recovery in global travel until 2022. It may be too late to save many airlines with just a few months of cash. And the delay threatens to kill the careers of hundreds of thousands of pilots, flight crews and airport workers who have already been out of work for nearly a year. Rather than a return to global connectivity – one of the economic miracles of the jet age – prolonged international isolation seems inevitable.
“It’s very important that people understand that right now all we know about vaccines is that they will very effectively reduce your risk of serious illness,” said Margaret Harris, spokesperson. of the WHO in Geneva. “We haven’t seen any evidence yet as to whether or not they are stopping transmission.”
To be sure, it’s possible that a travel rebound could happen on its own – without the need for vaccine passports. If the jabs start to bring down infection and death rates, governments could gain enough confidence to roll back quarantines and other border curbs, and rely more on Covid-19 testing before passengers fly.
The United Arab Emirates, for example, has largely removed entry restrictions, aside from the need for a negative test. While UK regulators have banned Ryanair’s ‘Jab & Go’ advertising as misleading, low-cost airline boss Michael O’Leary still expects nearly all of Europe’s population to be vaccinated. here the end of September. “This is the time when we are released from these restrictions,” he said. “Short-haul travel will recover quickly and quickly.”
For now, however, governments generally remain nervous about welcoming international visitors and the rules change if there is any problem. Witness Australia, which slammed the closure of its borders with New Zealand last month after New Zealand reported a case of COVID-19 in the community.
New Zealand and Australia, which continued a successful approach to eliminate the virus, both said their borders would not open fully this year. Travel bubbles, for their part, such as the one proposed between the Asian financial centers of Singapore and Hong Kong, have not yet taken hold. France tightened rules on international travel on Sunday as Canada prepares to impose tougher quarantine measures.
“Air traffic and aviation are really low on the government’s priority list,” said Phil Seymour, chairman and chief executive officer of UK aviation services company IBA Group Ltd. “It’s going to be a long journey.”
Another sticking point is the pace of vaccine deployments.
While the vaccination rate has improved in the United States – the world’s largest airline market before the virus hit – vaccination programs are far from the panacea of aviation. In some places, it’s just one more thing people bicker over. Vaccine nationalism in Europe has dissolved into a row on offer and which should be protected first. The region is also fractured over whether a jab should be a ticket for unrestricted travel.
All of this means that a rebound in passenger air traffic “is probably one thing for 2022,” according to Joshua Ng, Singapore-based director at Alton Aviation Consultancy. Long-haul travel might not resume properly until 2023 or 2024, he predicts. The International Air Transport Association said this week that in a worst-case scenario, passenger traffic could only improve by 13% this year. Its official forecast of a 50% rebound was released in December.
American Airlines Group Inc. on Wednesday warned 13,000 employees they could be made redundant, many for the second time in six months.
At the end of 2020, “we were convinced that we would consider a summer program where we would fly all of our planes and need the full strength of our team,” CEO Doug Parker and Chairman Robert Isom told workers. “Unfortunately, this is no longer the case.
The lack of progress is clear in the sky. Commercial flights around the world as of Feb. 1 have wallowed to less than half of pre-pandemic levels, according to OAG Aviation Worldwide Ltd. Regular services to major markets, including the UK, Brazil and Spain, are still declining, the data shows.
The quarantines that lock up arriving passengers for weeks remain the big enemy of a real travel rebound. A better alternative, according to IATA, is a digital Travel Pass to store vaccines and passenger tests, which helps lift restrictions. Many of the world’s largest airlines have deployed applications from IATA and others, including Singapore Airlines Ltd., Emirates, and British Airways.
“We need to work on as many options as possible,” said Richard Treeves, head of business resilience at British Airways. “We hope for integration on these common applications and standards.”
But even IATA recognizes that there is no guarantee that every state will adopt its Travel Pass right away, if at all. There is currently no consensus on vaccine passports within the 27-member European Union, with tourism dependent countries like Greece and Portugal supporting the idea and larger members including France, who refused.
“We’re going to have a disharmony at the start,” Nick Careen, IATA senior vice president for passenger affairs, said in a briefing last month. “None of this is ideal.”
The airline group has called on the WHO to determine that it is safe for those vaccinated to fly without quarantine, in a bid to strengthen the case for the Travel Pass. But the global health organization remains impassive.
“At this point all we can do is say, yes you have been vaccinated on this date with this vaccine and you have had your booster – if it is a two course vaccine – at this time. date, ”said WHO’s Harris. “We are working very hard to get a secure electronic system so that people have this information. But at this point, that’s all it is. It’s a record.
Nor could a vaccine passport demonstrate the quality or durability of any protective immunity obtained by being inoculated or naturally infected with the virus, Harris said.
“The idea that your natural immunity should be protective and that you could kind of use it as a way of saying ‘I’m ready to travel’ is completely gone.
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