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 flying again. Ryanair Holdings Plc has even launched a “Jab & Go” campaign, along with images of 20-year-olds on holiday with drinks in hand.
It does not work like that.
To begin with, it is not clear that the vaccines spread to travelers to spread the disease, even though they are less likely to catch it themselves. The shots were also not proven against the more contagious mutant strains that have frightened governments from Australia to the UK to close borders, rather than open them up. An ambitious drive by carriers of digital health passports to replace the mandatory quarantines that kill the travel demand is also fraught with challenges and has yet to win the World Health Organization.
This grim reality has pushed back the expectations of any significant recovery in global travel to 2022. It may be too late to save the numerous airlines with only a few months of cash left. And the delay threatens to kill the careers of hundreds of thousands of pilots, flight crew members and airport staff who have been out of work for nearly a year. Instead of returning to global connectivity – one of the economic miracles of the aircraft era – long-term international isolation seems inevitable.
“It is very important for people to understand that at the moment we only know about the vaccines that it will reduce your risk of serious diseases very effectively,” said Margaret Harris, a WHO spokesperson in Geneva. . “We have not yet seen any evidence indicating whether it was sent.”
To be sure, it is possible that a travel resistance will happen on its own – without vaccinating passports. As jabs begin to lower infection and mortality rates, governments can gain enough confidence to ease quarantines and other curbs, relying more on passengers’ pre-flight Covid-19 tests.
The United Arab Emirates, for example, has largely removed access restrictions, except for the need for a negative test. While UK regulators have banned Ryanair’s “Jab & Go” ad as misleading, Michael O’Leary, head of the discount airline, still expects the entire population of Europe to be vaccinated by the end of September. “This is the point where we are released from these restrictions,” he said. “Short-distance travel will recover quickly and easily.”
But for now, governments in general remain dazzling about welcoming international visitors, and the rules are changing at the slightest hint of trouble. Witness Australia, which closed its borders with New Zealand last month after New Zealand reported one COVID-19 case to the community.
New Zealand and Australia, which have taken a successful approach to eliminating the virus, have both said their borders will not be fully open this year. Travel bubbles, such as one proposed between the Asian financial hubs in Singapore and Hong Kong, should not yet take hold. France on Sunday tightened the rules on international travel while Canada is preparing to impose stricter quarantine measures.
“Air traffic and aviation are far less than the priority list for governments,” said Phil Seymour, president and chief adviser at the aviation services firm IBA Group Ltd. “It’s going to be a long time coming out of this.”
The rate of vaccine rollout is another fixed point.
While the rate of vaccinations in the US has improved – the world’s largest air travel market before the virus struck – vaccination programs have long been not the panacea for aviation. In some places it’s just one more thing people can argue about. Vaccine nationalism in Europe has settled in a row over the offer and who should be protected first. The region is also divided over whether a stitch should be a ticket for unlimited travel.
According to Joshua Ng, director of Alton Aviation Consultancy, Joshua Ng says a return in air traffic for passengers is likely to be a 2022 thing. Long-distance travel may not resume until 2023 or 2024, he predicts. The International Air Transport Association said this week that in the worst case, passenger traffic can improve by only 13%. Its official forecast for a 50% rebound was released in December.
American Airlines Group Inc. on Wednesday warned 13,000 employees that they could be laid off, many of them for the second time in six months.
By the end of 2020 “we fully believed that we would look at a summer schedule where we would fly all our planes and require the full power of our team,” Doug Parker, CEO, and President Robert Isom told the workers said. “Unfortunately, this is no longer the case.
The lack of progress is clearly in the air. According to OAG Aviation Worldwide Ltd. commercial flights worldwide have weakened to less than half pre-pandemic levels since February 1, according to the data.
Quarantines that lock passengers on arrival for weeks on end remain the great enemy of true travel resistance. A better alternative, according to IATA, is a digital Travel Pass to store passengers’ vaccination and testing history so that restrictions can be lifted. Many of the world’s largest airlines have developed programs 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, chief operating officer of British Airways. “We are hopeful for the integration into the applications and general standards.”
But even IATA acknowledges that there is no guarantee that each state will accept its Travel Pass immediately. There is currently no consensus on vaccine passports within the 27-member European Union, with tourism-dependent countries such as Greece and Portugal supporting the idea and pushing back larger members, including France.
“We will have a lack of harmony at the outset,” Nick Careen, IATA’s senior vice president for passenger affairs, said during a briefing last month. “None of that is ideal.”
The airline group has called on the WHO to establish that it is safe for vaccinated to fly without being quarantined, to strengthen the case for Travel Pass. But the global health body remains untouched.
“At this stage, all we can do is to say, ‘Yes, you were vaccinated with this vaccine on this date and you had a booster on that date – if it is a two-course vaccine,'” the WHO said. Harris said. ‘We work very hard to get a secure electronic system so that people have the information. But at this point, that’s all it is. This is a record. ”
Harris said a vaccine passport could not indicate the quality or durability of any protective immunity of the vaccine or the infection of viruses.
The idea that your natural immunity should be protective and that you can somehow use it as a way of saying ‘I’m good at traveling’ is completely out of the question.