#Aviation & Airlines - Fear or Adventure?

Here’s a question for you – if I was to offer you a free economy flight to a destination of your choice (anywhere more than 8 hours by flight), would your emotion be fear or a sense of adventure?

[let me also remind you that the flight is >8 hours and it will be full flight!]

Aviation was born out of human’s quest for freedom – we kept looking up at the birds, soaring on the air currents, free to fly where ever their wings (and heart) took them. While on the ground, we humans were bound down by how quickly our two legs could take us & how agile our hands were to survive! But we were inventors, discoverers, adventurers – never satisfied with what we had! We always wanted more and better!

You could say that aviation was also born out of quest for power, conflict & pain – World War II being the impetus for the growth aviation. Flying machines that dropped parcels of death on cities and populations, in peace time became symbols of trade & cooperation. Countries worked TOGETHER to create highways in the sky where people & parcels could travel to far flung corners of the world!

70+ years hence, aviation is an industry that is a leader when it comes to technology, safety, security & convenience! Flying was no longer a luxury with billions of people travelling! In a modern world driven by technology, busy work lives & consumerism – travel was perhaps one of the very few outlets that people could connect with other people whether on business or pleasure! Travel, flying was fun! But that is now so 2019!

Alas like life, aviation has shown itself to be so very fragile!

2020 is so very different! Travel used to be an adventure of the nice kind! But now people swing between fear, adventure, stress, reluctance & confusion when the topic of travel is brought up!

We kept talking about disruptive industries - we now have disrupted industries! Aviation globally has been disrupted the most!

May 2020 statistics from IATA showed that worldwide passenger traffic, measured in revenue passenger kilometers (RPK), decreased 91.3% during May 2020 compared with May 2019! Asia Pacific passenger traffic fell 82.7% during May, the smallest decline of any world region. All other world regions reported declines of 92% or more.

This article from Aviation Week Network “Airlines Are Failing In Their Safe-To-Fly Messaging” by Karen Walker, nicely sums up the challenge facing the industry today;

“For too long, the air transport industry praised itself on its sustainability efforts and assumed everyone outside the industry was similarly impressed. Last year’s dramatic rise and spread of the flight shaming movement showed the folly of that assumption and, for much of 2019, flight shame was seen with increasing alarm as a real threat to aviation growth.

The flight shame threat has been massively eclipsed by COVID-19. But airlines and those who represent the industry should take this lesson from flight shaming: it’s not just what the industry does, but how it’s communicated and who gets the message.”

The current messaging is creating more uncertainty or ambiguity. So many different things – which one(s) do people focus on?

1. Masks – to wear or not to! (the debate is ongoing)
2. Empty seats – for how long? and when you start filling the middle seat what happens then?
3. Aircraft & Coronavirus – remember HEPA filters (Air conditioning at home a whole different matter). Shouldn’t airlines be focus on this?
4. Government regulations & coordination (and understanding of aviation)
5. Temperature checks – yes or no?
6. Onboard food, NO! – keep those masks on!
7. Deep cleaning ……….
8. Health declarations – do they matter
9. Social distancing at the airport – does it make a difference?
10. Health versus Travel – is there consensus? Are both the industries actively working together?  Are experts from both side talking to each other?

Airlines say they are taking a “layered” approach? But again, is their messaging a little bit too vague?

Dr. William Schaffner of the Vanderbilt University Medical Center says that airlines “need to implement a series of measures that work together to reduce risk. You can't rely solely on any one of them because there is no magic bullet that takes care of everything.”

Should airlines come together with a common consistent message, rather than trying to out-market each other?

Aviation & airlines proved to the world in the past that they could quickly & effectively address safety & security issues!

Will this time be the same or will it be different – because many airlines are running out of time!

And yes, those aluminum tubes are a lot safer than an office space!