Since the beginning of the global Covid-19 pandemic in March, nearly the entire world has been ground to a halt. Many industries have suffered huge losses, and many people and companies have not been able to fully recover. One of the most heavily effected industries, however, is air travel.
On March 16, the Canadian government closed its borders to all travellers except for Canadian citizens and permanent residents. The lockdowns that followed would see thousands of shops and businesses close their doors for months.
With almost all air travel restricted at this point, many of Canada’s major airports were filled with dozens of airliners that were parked in overflow storage. Since regular hangars were nowhere near large enough to accommodate all of the aircraft, it was not an uncommon sight to lines of planes parked along closed taxiways and runways. At Vancouver International Airport, during the peak of the lockdowns, dozens of planes sat outside in storage. For example, WestJet alone had over 12.
The financial impact of the pandemic has been impossible to miss as well. At the beginning of November 2020, Air Canada reported a fourth quarter loss of $685 million and said that passenger traffic had decreased by 88 percent when compared to the same time last year. Meanwhile, WestJet has ended all of its flights to destinations in Eastern Canada, except for those flying to Halifax or St. John’s.
Aircraft manufacturers have been hit hard as well. In the summer of 2020, Boeing announced it would be discontinuing its iconic 747, arguably the most famous airplane ever made, due to poor financial conditions created by the pandemic. At the same time, Boeing had recently reported 2nd quarter losses of around $2.4 billion.
Many airlines are retiring their older or less efficient aircraft in an effort to save money. One notable example is the superjumbo Airbus A380, which despite being only 15 years old, has been retired by many of its carriers, including Emirates, Singapore Airlines, and Air France.
Airlines are also using cargo transport as an option to soften their losses and prevent their aircraft from staying grounded for too long, which can cause maintenance issues.
The A380s, which were previously going to be retired by Emirates, have been converted into cargo transporters for their Skycargo transport division. The giant airliners will be able to carry over 50 tons of cargo to destinations across the world.
While the effects on large companies are easy noticeable, small businesses, who can’t rely on government bailouts or extensive money reserves, have been hit even harder. Cathy Eberts is a Certified Travel Manager who has worked in the travel industry for over 36 years, and currently works at Walnut Grove Cruise & Travel.
“Since the pandemic started our loss of business was probably 98 percent. We’ve had to lay off most of our staff, and we might be closing in December”, says Eberts.
While domestic travel has been kept alive by business and other essential travel, quarantine restrictions have made international travel hugely inconvenient at best, and impossible at worst.
“There’s nothing for us to sell. Someone could go to Mexico, for example, but you’d have to quarantine for two weeks, so you’re asking people to take two more weeks’ holiday. None of my clients are comfortable booking in this atmosphere, because they’re too unsure”, she adds.
While the pandemic has done considerable damage to the air travel industry, the industry has shown some minor signs of recovery throughout the summer of 2020.
At the beginning of 2020, YVR was bringing in over 1 million travellers per month, a number that dropped down to under 70,000. Luckily, slow increases in passenger traffic allowed the airport to gain back just over 1/3 of its pre-pandemic numbers.
No one knows how long the pandemic will last, and with the looming threat of a second wave becoming more and more likely in Canada and other countries across the world, the air travel industry will still have many challenges to face before it can fully recover.
However, with companies such as Pfizer and Medicago making promising developments in vaccine production, there is some hope that 2021 will be the pandemic’s final year. Even after the pandemic ends, its effects will be felt by the airline industry and many others for years to come.
