Covirus 19 coronavirus: travel abroad won’t return until 2023, experts warn

The impact of the coronavirus on foreign travel may be worse than expected. An international airline boss predicts things won’t be normal until 2023.

A new analysis by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) says it will be years before long-distance travel recovers to pre-pandemic levels.

“We have released today a new forecast on the possible recovery of air traffic, and what we see is that things should return to normal in 2023, which is later than our previous forecast,” IATA chief executive officer told ABC News. , Alexandre de Juniac. Breakfast this morning

• Covid19.govt.nz – The official government Covid-19 advisory website

“That shows, you know, the importance and severity of this crisis in air transport. We should progressively join the historical trends in early 2023.

“What we have planned is to restart the industry, first by reopening domestic markets, then regional continental markets, such as Asia-Pacific, Europe or North America.”

“By the end of 2020, traffic should be between 50 and 55 percent of the same level that existed in 2019.

“So we would lose something like half the traffic by 2020.”

The IATA report found that quarantine measures on arrival, such as the two-week quarantine imposed in Australia, would continue to damage confidence in travel.

Their survey of air travelers found that 86 percent were concerned about being quarantined while traveling, and 69 percent would reconsider traveling if that meant being quarantined for 14 days.

IATA urged governments to find alternatives, warning that “they should not make that forecast worse by making travel impractical with quarantine measures.”

A combination of temporary measures has been suggested until there is a vaccine or evidence of instantaneous results, such as temperature detection, prevention of travel to symptomatic travelers, health claims of asymptomatic travelers, and vigorous contact tracking.

“[Quarantine] it’s an important deterrent, “de Juniac told ABC.

“We are not sure that it is necessary to impose this type of measures, as long as we have [a] multi-layered approach: various health checks and health checks that would ensure that the risk of contamination is absolutely minimal and low, and the risk of transferring the virus from one country to another is also under control and minimal. “

The IATA report also found that the recovery of the airline industry would be led by domestic travel and that “biosecurity standards implemented and agreed globally” were critical to the industry’s recovery.

De Juniac told ABC that the airline industry faced a loss of revenue of $ 496 billion this year.

He said that if it hadn’t been for government support for airlines around the world, many would already be bankrupt.

“There is a risk that some airlines will go bankrupt,” he said.

“So we rely on the support packages and rescue plans that have been drawn up by governments and that have been announced by governments, with, I must say, very supportive and open attitudes to help us. But without this plan, half of airlines could file for bankruptcy in June and 80 percent could file for bankruptcy in July. “