It is almost a year since Jet Airways shut down operations, and while some of that airline’s Boeing 737 are still flying about with Jet’s unmistakable dark blue tails for SpiceJet and Vistara, the aviation industry in India lurches towards another crisis. It should not be like this, Vistara just took delivery of their very first Boeing 787 Dreamliner and was going to start long-haul operations by April. But not just India, the global aviation industry has suddenly found itself in a crisis, and this one has nothing to do with dodgy software on aircraft and questionable financial practices. This is all to do with the Chinese Flu that has the world in a panic. This viral outbreak is the first truly global viral outbreak made possible in no small part thanks to the aviation and tourism industries and unsurprisingly both sectors are staring down the abyss.
Just look at China, according to statistics from flight tracking service Flightradar24, civilian air traffic in China is down 80 percent. Passenger traffic is down even more, as many of the flights operating are cargo flights ferrying essential supplies to and from effected cities.
China was for the past decade the fastest growing aviation market in the world, and now huge airport terminals including Beijing’s brand new one sit almost deserted. Chinese skies notorious for their heavy congestion and delays are viryaully empty and that is evident to regular observers of flight tracking services. And international services to and from China have virtually ended with several nations including India putting restrictions on visitors from mainland China. But the demand collapse isn’t just on sectors to and from China, as the Covid 2019 contagion grows to impact South Korea and Japan as well, travel to and from those nations has also been impacted. With thousands of cases also detected in Italy and several hundred across Europe, conferences and events big and small are being cancelled. The cancellation of the Geneva Motor Show being by far and away the most significant one so far. All this is leading to thousands of cancelled tickets and hotel reservations and hundreds of grounded planes.
Aircraft are quite different from cars in the sense that they get used extremely heavily, most planes fly a minimum of eight-ten hours a day at the minimum and some low-cost carriers use their planes for twelve hours daily at the very least. As it is all Indian carriers have cancelled all services to China and Hong Kong. Flights to Seoul and Tokyo might be next on the chopping block.
Additionally, as demand for Bangkok and Singapore has fallen, services have dropped by half by airlines. With non-essential travel advisories across the corporate sector and aviation ironically becoming an airborne vector of sorts, demand is collapsing even in India. Speak to airline and security staff at airports over the past two days and they’ve noticed demand drop off by a significant number although until the industry releases their statistics for March we will not know the true decline in both international and domestic passenger numbers. And Indian carriers don’t have it half as bad as any of the Chinese airlines, several of whom will probably emerge from the viral crisis still on long-term life support. Even airlines like Cathay Pacific of Hong Kong and Singapore Airlines have grounded a third of their fleets, thanks to their dependence on traffic to and from China. And as demand to Europe and even the Indian subcontinent starts showing signs of a precipitous fall, even airlines like Dubai’s Emirates, the world’s largest A380 operator have sliced back services. Once the true toll of the viral impact in the United States is clear, the world’s largest aviation market by a long distance, things could go really pear shaped for the industry. Of course, it may not be as bad as it is for tourism dependant European airlines and this viral attack could kill off many airlines and without a steady supply of Chinese, Indian and even American tourists to bolster national and local budgets, countries like France and Italy could face major budgetary issues.
And the government is planning to sell Air India in the midst of all this. To be fair, when they took the decision, they had little idea of what was coming but maybe, just maybe it might be a good idea to keep things on hold and let the market recover. And the market may not recover for some time to come. While free markets should reign and thus it is important that Air India should be privatised, the situation is b coming critical and the government might need to intervene for the entire industry.
