OrangeMango

How is social distancing and the possibility of airline travel supposed to work in reality? The distance of 2 meters is simply unrealistic at this or any point in the future.

At the moment, everybody, even the airlines are rather quiet if asked this straight question.

Is the harsh answer only waiting until there are no more cases, or waiting until there is a vaccine?

Pollyana

Personally I don't think there is a future for airline travel.Many airlines are struggling to survive, and I think international travel at least is unlikly to happen for 4-5 years. So social distancing is pretty irrelevant..

OrangeMango

I was hoping for a more encouraging answer than that....

How is social distancing supposed to work if you live in a high rise condo block and have to use an elevator?

scrubbedexpat142

The traffic will come back, but, as you say it will take a few years.

OrangeMango

Wouldn't airline travel come back as soon as the curve flattens and there are no more infections? Regardless of vaccine or not?

Dorothy

I work in a high rise building and there are rules of no more than 4 passengers at a time in order to stay apart.

scrubbedexpat142

Oh yes, it will start to come back quickly, with a lot of pent up demand but will take a while to come back to pre Covid levels.

Initially it will depend on the mix of airline (business models) that are still in business when the immediate crisis passes.
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moneypenny20

As soon as the curve flattens and there are no more infections, there will immediately be more infections and the curve will rise again. Until there's a vaccine anyway. imo only.

Jerseygirl

our condo management have asked that no more than 2 people in the el at anyone one time. They have even stuck footprints on the floor...showing you where to stand.

scrubbedexpat142

The elevator in our block only holds 3 (close friends) so now its one at a time!

BristolUK

That must be a tad irritating if you live around halfway and the limit has already been reached when it gets to you.

Jerseygirl

no idea because we are not living there ATM. Saying that...it probably isn’t a problem because most are staying home.

Paul_Shepherd

Thats an interesting viewpoint, so after this is all over, and we have a vaccine, you still don't think there will be air travel? 4-5 years is a long time, and being such a global society now, business's spread all over the world, family and friends spread all over the world, and people's desire to travel and see other parts of the world, I don't see how there wont be air travel .....I think it will resume once its safe to do so. BUT..... it will be a lot more expensive, the competition wont be there to drive prices down, its taken years to get to the point where we were at with low cost air travel, and the low cost airlines probably wont survive this, I agree that the era of low cost air travel is over.

Sadly air travel is not the only thing thats going to be more expensive......life in general is going to be very expensive after this.

scrubbedexpat091

Airlines are about the last industry to recover from economic downturns. One of the first to suffer and last to recover, airlines along with railroads can be early indicators of how the economy is doing.

Air travel at this point isn't likely to recover quickly once this thing dies down because a good chunk of the western world and other countries will be in a recession, people tend to not travel much in recessions.

Jobs "temporarily" lost now wont all return, unemployment will increase, how much is the question. Where I am, economists are estimating 10% if we are luck and upwards of 20% worst case scenario but they seem to be basing that on things returning to normal within a month or so which seems less likely at this point.

There are already companies who have laid most of their workers off because they have had to close their stores, saying they will be smaller, with less stores and less employees going forward, 2 of the biggest airlines in the US have said they will end up being smaller airlines with less employees at the end of it all, so the assumption that everyone not working now will suddenly all have their jobs backs is wishful thinking.

International travel will be last to recover, countries will keep restrictions on who can enter until most of the world has no significant cases, China and some Asian countries started to see that, their local cases dropping, but imported cases rising, which is in part one reason why China is gone to a 1 route, 1 time per week rule for airlines, they can pick 1 route between China and their home country and fly it once per week, no more than a 75% load factor.

China wont reconsider reducing the restrictions until the country in question until cases drop and no new cases are discovered for 21 days. As long as the US has a major outbreak going on still, Canada isn't likely to risk relaxing the restrictions either, and if anything will make it more difficult before it gets easier, pretty much only Canadian Citizens and Permanent Residents allowed in now with few exceptions such as diplomats and airline crew and those entering now must quarantine for 14 days, and sounds like the government is renting hotels near airports to ensure people quarantine.

So yeah wont return to normal in 2020, and 2021 is pushing it, I would say closer to 2022 at the earliest and countries may need to choose which airlines to save and which to die, can't save them all, and some are not well run prior to this so those in financial difficulty prior to this should just be left to die as if they couldn't do well in the last decades boom they have deeper issues with their business model.

I could also see countries like Canada with fairly high annual immigration rates curtailing new immigration as unemployment rises.

Danny B

4-5 years of no intl travel is impossible.
Or did you mean 4-5 months?