Summer vacations used to mean wine tasting in Tuscany, backpacking in Southeast Asia, or trips to the Grand Canyon.
But fears that planes could be a breeding ground for Covid-19 infections have wreaked havoc with the air transport industry.
“This could take several years before we are in our new way of traveling,” said Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian.
Last Sunday, fewer than 640,000 passengers flew from U.S. airports compared to more than 2.6 million travelers a year earlier.
With a sharp decline in passenger demand, Delta, United and American parked hundreds of planes and posted their first quarterly losses in more than five years.
American Airlines said it expects its second-quarter 2020 revenue to drop approximately 90% compared to the second quarter of 2019.
The US airline industry is in crisis.
“This is the biggest crisis of all, even bigger than 9/11, than SARS and the Great Recession and all of that. Every crisis changes the airline industry, so it is reasonable to think that the biggest crisis of all will cause some of the biggest changes of all, “said Seth Kaplan, aviation analyst and director of Kaplan Research.
To lure panicked travelers, U.S. carriers have implemented new rules, thoroughly cleaned planes and waived some fees. Some airlines are also limiting the number of seats they sell.
But analysts argue that even with all the changes, it is impossible to maintain the rules of social distancing on airplanes.
American airlines are facing their biggest crisis in a generation, and the stakes have never been higher. So will all of these changes keep passengers safe? And what can travelers expect in six months? Watch this video to learn more.
Look more:
Why US Hospitals Close
What are airlines doing to clean their planes?
For more information on technology, transformation and the future of work, join the most influential voices that interrupt the next decade of work in the next CNBC @Work Summit this October
.
