For an industry that prides itself on bringing people together, it was a particular humiliation for airlines to have to resort to video conferencing for their annual industry meeting this week – and not one they are ready to repeat.<\/p>\n
Brought to their knees by the COVID-19 pandemic and struggling to convince governments to replace quarantines with testing, airlines turned to veteran IAG boss Willie Walsh to lead industry association IATA from next April.<\/p>\n
“My style will be different from what has gone before me,” said Walsh, known to British Airways unions as something of a bruiser, as he thanked outgoing IATA chief Alexandre de Juniac.<\/p>\n
“I too am a businessman and I too understand how governments operate, but I’m even more unhappy and more critical of how they get things done (and) how they’ve failed to get things done,” said Walsh.<\/p>\n
Without a doubt, this will be Walsh’s biggest challenge yet.<\/p>\n
In three days of media briefings around the meeting, IATA further downgraded its financial outlook for the sector as a second wave of coronavirus cases in Europe and the US points to more heavy losses and bankruptcies.<\/p>\n
That may test Walsh’s aversion to bailouts and subsidies. Little was said about further aid at the meeting, which ended on Wednesday, though de Juniac called days earlier for $80 billion in support on top of the $160 billion received.<\/p>\n
Despite vaccines promising eventual relief, executives worry they might reduce the immediate pressure on policymakers to reopen travel safely.<\/p>\n
In the short term, meanwhile, they are having to roll out apps designed to manage health certificates and the broader chaos.<\/p>\n
Governments may also use air travel to encourage vaccine uptake – drawing airlines into a political minefield. Australia’s Qantas said it expected to require all passengers to show vaccination certificates.<\/p>\n
“We know in some countries we have some difficulties to convince the population to be vaccinated,” de Juniac told Reuters before the meeting – warning that any general requirement could effectively bar people from travel.<\/p>\n
For airlines that survive COVID-19, intense environmental pressures still lie in wait, as several executives observed; “flight-shaming” has not gone away.<\/p>\n
In Europe, the industry is battling new green taxes and regulation while facing higher investment demands for cleaner aircraft and fuel technology development.<\/p>\n
Bailouts and borrowing have swollen global airlines’ debt by more than half to $651 billion, IATA Chief Economist Brian Pearce said – a mountain that will undermine their ability to fund more efficient new aircraft, let alone green innovation.<\/p>\n
Underlining the financial strain, Norwegian Air became the latest crisis casualty when it filed for Irish bankruptcy protection days before the meeting.<\/p>\n
“Airlines are setting themselves up for horrendous balance sheet structures,” said James Halstead, managing partner at consulting firm Aviation Strategy, who believes airlines will continue to struggle to influence policy.<\/p>\n
“The people in the driving seat are health authorities – it’s a massive health crisis, so they don’t want people moving around,” Haltead said. “The feeling is that aviation can be tackled later.”<\/p>\n
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