CHANGING PLANES: COVID-19 VIRAL OUTBREAK WILL CREATE ‘NEW ERA OF AEROSPACE’
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From an Aerial Silk Road and next-gen planes, to passengers sharing cabins with packages, a new era of aerospace is dawning. Rose Dykins reports
Right now, most airlines have grounded between 80 per cent and 100 per cent of their global fleets. “This amounts to almost a full season of lost operations,” says Nick Careen, senior vice-president of IATA, speaking at Apex’s recent Flight Plan virtual conference. “There’s no parallel to draw from this in recent memory.”
One of the knock-on effects of this black-out season of commercial aviation will be the delivery of the latest, cutting edge aircraft.
Aerospace manufacturers have had to contend with cancelled orders and leases from airlines who can no longer afford them. Boeing and Airbus have downsized their global teams and cut their aircraft production for 2020 drastically, as spending money on new aircraft will be the least of airlines’ priorities as they battle to stay afloat.