Corona crisis: How will the air travel in the coming days?

Due to the Covid-19 epidemic, travel is banned in all countries of the world at this time. Its worst effect has been on air travel.

Thousands of aircraft have been parked from USA to Australia. After the 9/11 terrorist attack on America in 2001, the aviation industry is in such a big crisis.

At the moment, most of the world’s passenger aircraft are standing and waiting to be allowed to fly.

Now all countries are opening lockdown. So, the aviation industry is also slowly gaining momentum. Different countries are adopting different tips for this.

Recently South Africa has opened up its tourism industry to domestic tourists. That is, foreign travelers will not be able to come to South Africa.

Apart from this, many countries are making ‘travel bubbles’. This means that two countries are starting air services to come to each other with mutual consent.

For example, from 10 July Britain has started airlines with fifty countries. Passengers coming to Britain from these countries will be allowed to enter without any quarantine.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said, “Instead of quarantining all passengers, we will only quarantine travelers from countries where the virus has not been controlled yet.”

Another recipe that is being tried to start air travel is the comprehensive system of testing. With the help of this, foreigners arriving at the airport will be immediately corona tested, only then they will be allowed to enter the country.

However, the biggest problem comes with virus testing, its results have to be accurate. In many tests, virus infection is often not detected.

If a single passenger is tested wrong, then he can go ahead and make countless people a victim of corona virus.

Maureen Ferran of New York’s Rochester Institute calls it false negative.

According to Maureen, ‘this happens when samples taken from the nose are not removed correctly. Sometimes the presence of virus in the nose is late. Viruses are not there in the initial stages of infection. That is, if samples are taken from the nose during that time, then that person will be found corona negative. While the corona virus will be present inside it.

Air travel will also be relieved by the introduction of Corona virus vaccine. Because the vaccine gives the body the strength to fight against microbes.

Trial of many vaccines is going on. Still, it will take time for the corona virus vaccine to reach every human being. It may take several months or even years.

Remember that it took ten years to develop the measles vaccine and it could have been launched in the market after fifty years. However, the corona virus vaccine will not take that much time.

Prior to Covid-19, passengers were given a lot of facilities. Headphones, favorite food. But, after Covid-19, many of these facilities are set to be cut.

In order to follow social distancing, some seats of the aircraft will have to be kept vacant. So airlines have to cut facilities to make their profits. Yes, the trend of giving essential things like masks and face shields to the passengers has also started.

Rent is also often increased due to reduced demand. So in the coming time, we should also be ready to pay the increased fare for air travel.

Because running an airline is a very expensive job. A Boeing 737 aircraft is more than one million dollars expensive. Then, add fuel and tax to it as well.

If you include the cost of the pilot and cabin crew together, flying a single aircraft costs hundreds of crores of rupees.

Many budget airlines charge more passengers in their planes to cover such a huge cost.

Such as Ryanair of Ireland or IndiGo Airlines in India. She seats ten percent more passengers in her cabin. In order to recover the cost.

Now, in the era of social distancing, budget airlines cannot try this recipe. Demand is rising that more than two-thirds of the seats in planes should not be filled. Due to this, there is a possibility of increasing the fare for air travel.

Guilomé Fourie, chief executive of European company Airbus, says, “The Covid-19 is the biggest crisis for the aircraft industry so far”. Similarly, IATA, an organization of 300 airlines, says, ‘The journey of recovery of the aviation industry has just begun. It will be a very long and painful journey.

The bottom line is that the business of air travel will recover from the shock of Covid-19. However, how long will it be and how much will it cost, it is difficult to say.