The global collapse of the air travel industry, as a result of travel restrictions and border closures imposed by governments in attempts to contain the Covid-19 pandemic, could cost the world 25-million jobs. This was a conclusion of the latest analysis by the global airline sector’s representative body, the International Air Transport Association (Iata), released on April 7.

“There are no words to adequately describe the devastating impact of Covid-19 on the airline industry,” highlighted Iata director-general and CEO Alexandre de Juniac. “And the economic pain will be shared by 25-million people who work in jobs dependent upon airlines. Airlines must be viable businesses so that they can lead the recovery when the pandemic is contained. A lifeline to the airlines now is critical.”

Iata estimated that 65.5-million people worldwide were dependent on the aviation sector, including 2.7-million airline jobs. The rest of that total included people in the travel and and tourism industries. The calculation that 25-million of these people could lose their jobs was based on the assumption that the current severe travel restrictions would continue for three months.

For Africa, the predicted job losses would come to 2-million. The Middle East would lose 900 000 jobs, and the Asia-Pacific region 11.2-million. Job losses in Europe would come to 5.6-million. For North America, the figure would also be 2-million and for Latin America, 2.9-million.

Iata continued to call for direct and indirect financial support for the world’s airlines. But it also stressed the need for thorough planning and coordination to make certain that airlines would be ready for the resumption of operations once the pandemic had been contained.

“We have never shuttered the industry on this scale before,” he stressed. “Consequently, we have no experience in starting it up. It will be complicated. At the practical level, we will need contingencies for licenses and certifications that have expired. We will have to adapt operations and processes to avoid reinfections via imported cases. And we must find a predictable and efficient approach to managing travel restrictions which need to be lifted before we can get back to work.”

To successfully reactivate the airline industry would require alignment between it and governments. Iata was already examining a thorough-going ‘re-booting’ of the sector, as soon as the political and public health authorities permitted it. This process would have to involve many stakeholders. The first step in this process would be a series of regional summits or meetings – conducted virtually – that would involve governments and airlines. Iata hoped that these summits would start before the end of this month.

“We are not expecting to re-start the same industry that we closed a few weeks ago,” said De Juniac. “Airlines will still connect the world. And we will do that through a variety of business models. But the industry process will need to adapt. We must get on with this work quickly. We don’t want to repeat the mistakes made after [the September 2001 terrorist attacks on the US known as] 9.11 when many new processes were imposed in an uncoordinated way. We ended up with a mess of measures that we are still sorting out today. The 25-million whose jobs are at risk by this crisis will depend on an efficient re-start of the industry.”