From taming horse to flying aircraft:
A biased belief that aviation industry will rise sooner than it’s expected
At the dawn of human civilization, there is one animal that transformed the world with its speed and power. It is the animal that gave humans extra edge to travel faster. Yes, we are talking about Horse.
Around 6000 years ago when humans began to domesticate Horses, they literally transformed the world by inventing a new approach, speed.
This unique ability gave men competitive advantage to expand and conquer over others. Tribes could travel farther distances in less time. Cultures, languages, beliefs raced around the world, wars won, empires built.
Since then the concept of moving fast is embedded in us by nature.
If we look around us, all our efforts, all our inventions and practices has one common goal, is to get things done faster. We needed quick meal, fast food invented. We needed faster production, machines took over human jobs. We needed faster communication, email, cell phones, internet emerged. We needed faster travel; we built aircraft and took over the air.
Talking about the faster travel, yes, the air transportation is still the fastest and safest commercial means of transportation to travel around the world. As, the “Traveling at Light Speed” and “Teleportation” are still in theory, there is no faster alternatives of air travel in today’s world.
With CoVID19 strike in late 2019, the aviation industry was the first to be affected and become the prime victim of the pandemic.
As of now the industry has faced a total loss of 84 Billion US dollar with potential revenue loss of a total 419 Billion US dollars¹. The industry literally became paralyzed. Sitting idle and witnessing the silent operating cost rising each and every day. Few of the airlines went bankrupt. Millions of aviation professionals lost jobs. A scary scenario the industry ever witnessed.
It is uncertain for now to tell when the industry can fully revive, not sooner for sure. Some saying it may take three years year for industry to get back on track, other have suggested a possible recovery by 2025. But it is for sure that the industry will rise up and start growing as it has been on a positive growing track over decades.
After the 9/11 incident, the aviation industry in the US had a pause for a while. It changed the course of airlines operation all around the world. Drastic reforms in security policy were undertaken. Massive security measures were introduced. The industry resumed with adapted norms.
Similar challenges were observed during the 2010 Icelandic volcano eruption when Europe aviation industry was shut down. Then again the industry rose and began to growth.
Quoting from the article by “A global problem” by Darren Ellis, Lecturer in Air Transport Management,
“Although airline brands have come and gone, the industry had remained on a growth path for decades. It will take time to recover from the pandemic. Some airlines will fail. But widespread changes to the industry’s structure are unlikely to occur. People will, of course, need and want to travel by air again when this pandemic is over. Which airlines survive – and which go on to thrive – will largely depend on how successful individual countries’ economic support packages turn out to be.²”
As an aviation enthusiast and my unconditional, biased positiveness towards the aviation industry, I believe the industry will turn around way sooner than it is estimated, because we need to move, and we need to move fast. The world is globalized. A state cannot survive without global trade. It has to open its borders. In order to support that the aviation industry needs to find safe, efficient, adaptive and sustainable measures to resume. It also required a bailout support from individual states, which I believe all concerned states are giving a serious nod.
Besides, organizations like ICAO, IATA, EASA, FAA are continuously providing guidelines and support to the industry to kick start. Already some states have opened their borders and allowed small scale flight operation and observing the sustainability.
I believe, it may be a stretched pause in the industry for now, but the industry will soon be back on its wing, and we will fly again.
Ref:
1. https://www.iata.org/
2. https://theconversation.com/what-future-do-airlines-have-three-experts-discuss-135365
