Looking back at the global scene in January 2020, we had several notions in our mind that we felt where all-enduring and never to be repeated. The grounding of the Boeing 737 Max for instance, shattered the industry, the confidence in the FAA, and nearly brought Boeing to its heels. We thought that would be the worst to happen to aviation in a long time. Little did we know then what was still to come…. The Global Financial Crisis of 2008-2009 was still fresh on the lips and having a lasting effect in the world economy, with some nations only just emerging from the austerity measures and doom and gloom. In geo-economic terms, things were never expected to ever get worse than that. Enter the stage / the novel covid-19 virus that took the world by storm. When everyone thought it would be an asteroid to threaten the earth first, the world was blindsided by something that we should have all been ready for - global pandemic. Apart from the hospitals and caregivers on the front lines which are living through the trench warfare first-hand, aviation was once again hit by the unbelievable, the unimaginable, the unforeseen…
Forcing the early retirement of the Airbus A380 straight into its coffin, alongside the evaporation of long-haul and business travel, the summer period proved a mere whiff of what travel used to be like before covid. The rest of what happened to the airline industry is just banter… you know the story. Then a sudden price war in April between Russia and Saudi Arabia saw oil prices bottom out with the price of a barrel of oil down to less than the cost of a Starbucks coffee, and at one point even negative on the barrel, plunging the global markets into further disarray. Then, we had nothing but to end the year with chaos in the USA with covid-19 running rampant and an election that turned toxic in the Trump versus Biden administration tug-of-war and the uncertainty and volatility that came with it. What could the markets, the consumers, the investors, and the lenders possible think at this stage.
Then a proper miracle – the emergence of multiple promising vaccines based on cutting-edge medical technology, and promising billions of doses in just months across the world to curtail the devastating effects of the invisible enemy. Had medical technology not stepped in, the world would be celebrating New Years eve with an outlook of 2-3 more years of lockdowns and confinement. Although the vaccine seems almost too good to be true, its success will depend on many factors including the ability to distribute efficiently, its efficacy outside of clinical trials, the willingness of citizens to accept the vaccine enough to achieve herd immunity, and the race against mutation which can rewind all efforts back to February 2020.
So, should we be optimistic? Of course we should. We have the tools, the technology, the means, and the capacity to deal with this pandemic better than any other pandemic in the history of mankind. Challenging it is no doubt, but instead, politics, human nature, and fear remain - the biggest threats. Aviation has a lot of rebuilding to do. In fact, it will inevitably need to re-write the books on how the industry is even managed, from the way it is regulated, to the way it is financed. There will be a new norm from this outcome – and when we get to it, please tell us what it is. For now, not even the fortune tellers will know. But what is certain is that aviation catapulted the world for a reason, and that reason has not changed and probably never will – global connectivity. If we are to survive the next decades or century, humans will need to interact more and more, to save the planet, bridge our differences, eradicate injustice, bring new wealth and new ideas to our societies, trade, and maintain the social bonds within families. So in 2021, keep your head up high for the sound of jets and don't look back – but focus straight ahead. This too shall pass.
