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so some pretty heavy duty government support is going to be needed.
I think that as things go back to something like normal and furlough ends and we all end up paying 10% more in tax to pay it off even if our companies manged to work through it or just laid off staff.
There is going to be zero appetite for bailing anyone out. Especially those that are seen as being a bit too tax efficient or polluting.
brave move! there’s going to be some airlines going bust as a result of this. EZY will prob be ok, not too sure about jet2.
Jet2 are probably quite well placed as they own almost all of their fleet, have little to no business travel, perform lots of their own maintenance and have few bases.
Lower pressure air contains less moisture so yes, especially on the aircraft pressurised to 8k ft the air does feel dry and a lot of the feeling of ‘crapness’ you get on long haul flights is due to that
I've also heard that the dryness dries out your nasal lining which in turn makes it more susceptible to infection. I used to feel terrible on the transatlantic family-visiting flights we did, my nose would be a dried up mess and I'd always feel really parched and grim for the following few days. Either dryness, infection or a side effect of travel sickness medicine. However since flying way more for work, this has eased up and I can fly with impunity now. So I've either built up a tolerance to the dry air or the medicine, air quality is better than 10 years ago, or my immune system is now that good that I can deal with international bugs.
Airbus say that a 0.3 micron filter is, for some reason, better at catching virus particles.
Isn't it the moisture droplets that are the issue not the virus itself?
There is going to be zero appetite for bailing anyone out. Especially those that are seen as being a bit too tax efficient or polluting.
Classic case of the general public not understanding the industry and it's contribution to everyone's day to day lives. If you're referring to Branson in the tax efficiency stakes then that too was a ridiculous story. Branson has almost zero to do with the airline these days and Virgin Group is a minority share holder...it certainly is not his airline or controlled by him or the Virgin Group. Also take into account the hundreds of billions of pounds of orders the airline has with Airbus and Rolls-Royce for brand new super efficient aircraft it should be greatly the UK's interests to bail out Virgin terms of the tax take for the UK government from Airbus, Rolls-Royce and all the tens of thousands of well paid employees working for Airbus and RR...much more so than other British airlines that have gone bust recently who chose US airframes and engines. Governments are going to have to support most sectors of our economy...we have a diversified economy, and the airlien industry is a significant enabler of the way the economy works. Also the government bail outs being discussed are coming with 'green strings' where airlines have to commit to reducing their CO2 and emissions if they were to be bailed out...even though aircraft only contribute about 3% of CO2.
If the airlines 'make so little money as it is', then how could Easy Jet afford to pay out £172 million to shareholders middle of last month? [including £60 million to Stelios personally]
A week later they asked the government for a £600 million bail out.
Yes that's true, I heard a full low cost short haul flight was costing 50gbp per seat at 100% occupancy. The last few years I have flown at off peak times at c 25 GBP per journey, with no extras. So was being subsidised by the others and as o Leary said this morning, summer is where his profit is.
I just can't see social distancing on planes working, most times at Manchester passport control there isn't space for the queue if everyone was 2m apart, we d be queuing all round the perimeter fence.
So flight related question....
Daughter and her gymnastics team should have been going to Iceland this summer for EuroGym, but now cancelled, obviously.
The event is being rescheduled for next year. The airline have apparently agreed to just transfer the booking on for them.
I'm wondering what sort of guarantee there is that the airline will still exist next year, and whether the club shouldn't be angling for a refund?
The more people ask for a refund, the less likely it is that the airline will exist. Same as payign your nursery or your cleaners.
Fair point. Suspect the flight is a relatively small part of the cost of the week!
Pre-departure screening via swab or finger-prick test is the way to go in this, assuming that a test becomes available that can deliver reasonably accurate results in a short time.
How would that work in practice? A family of four turn up for departure. One tests positive. Are they still liable for the cost of the flight and of any accommodation they've booked? It's not like they're going to get travel insurance.
And what happens if you test positive before your flight home?
If a vaccine becomes available then I can see it being like yellow fever. If you are coming from or through an at risk country you need documentation to travel.
There’s a blood test coming out in the US that might allow very quick testing. It is also able to detect the virus before it becomes infectious apparently.
The air on well maintained modern aircraft is hepa filtered. In fact, the best air to breathe would be straight out of the nozzle!
The far bigger issue is the huge movement activity, unclean surfaces and human interaction going on from check-in to leaving their airport at the other end.
We're flying back to the UK as a family in July. Going to be an odd experience! Hopefully plenty of spaces on the plane....
How would that work in practice? A family of four turn up for departure. One tests positive. Are they still liable for the cost of the flight and of any accommodation they’ve booked? It’s not like they’re going to get travel insurance.
And what happens if you test positive before your flight home?
If this becomes the scenario I imagine insurance companies will be queueing up to offer policies. They might be relatively expensive, and they might need to be underwritten by the government initially to offset this, but there's a huge gap in the market which will be filled.
How would that work in practice? A family of four turn up for departure. One tests positive. Are they still liable for the cost of the flight and of any accommodation they’ve booked? It’s not like they’re going to get travel insurance.
Bit like the situation where a family turns up and someone has forgotten their passport or it's run out, they don't get on the flight. Whilst it's pretty crap the family lose their holiday, potentially infecting others and continuing to spread the virus is not an acceptable price to pay so they can still go on holiday.
They're already expecting business travel take a big hit, provided resorts reopen I would expect an increase in holidays next year when the current situation is more of a memorary. Or at least I would expect that, but by this time next year that other vile infection this country has, Brexit will be in full swing so while everyone else is slowly getting back to prosperity will be smashing our economy to death, but hey, you know flags and stuff.
I can't help but hope it will be the end of cheap mass aviation.
Bit like the situation where a family turns up and someone has forgotten their passport or it’s run out, they don’t get on the flight. Whilst it’s pretty crap the family lose their holiday, potentially infecting others and continuing to spread the virus is not an acceptable price to pay so they can still go on holiday.
Yep. So how many will take the risk of a last-minute test fail and book on that basis?
I imagine insurance companies will be queueing up to offer policies. They might be relatively expensive, and they might need to be underwritten by the government initially
Well, they can **** right of with using my taxes to underwrite the insurance industry.
I can’t help but hope it will be the end of cheap mass aviation.
Nah, apparently we're all going to subsidise the airlines, insurance companies, aircraft manufacturers and oil companies.
most times at Manchester passport control
I reckon they are going to seize the opportunity to build out on their existing winning customer service model. Queue up at security for the standard Covid-19 service where the staff will now breath in your face while they rummage through your belongings, or £10 for the face mask queue. You can't bring that bottle of hand sanitizer through sir, it's the rules.
Well, they can **** right of with using my taxes to underwrite the insurance industry.
Would be an interesting world if we could decide what we spent our taxes on.
I assume you'd be perfectly happy paying more tax provided it went on benefits to support the 250,000 unemployed workers in the sector?
The reality is that your taxes aren't thrown away when you pay them, nor do you get any say on where they go other than by voting for your MP. Could you imagine what life would be like if the Brexit Brigade got to determine what their taxes were spent on?
Caveat here is that if an airline / airport / bank etc receives a government bailout beyond the furlough scheme they should be banned from making dividend payments to shareholders along with a ban on executive share options and bonuses until it's paid back.
Not just the airline industry though is it. Rolls Royce are considering redundancies, thats a lot of well paid, skilled jobs and proper future apprenticeships going.
Doubt the insurance industry will want to underwrite that risk, in fact I can see Covid-19 being excluded from new policies. Be plenty of people who will assume it won't happen to them anyway, same people who don't have travel insurance and kick off when the government doesn't rescue them from whatever mess they've gotten themselves into.
Agree about Manchester airport, one of the worst airports for arrogant and inefficient customer service.
fatmountain
Member
I can’t help but hope it will be the end of cheap mass aviation.
@fatmountain - why?
like millions of others i live right under a very busy flightpath in a poor area with a dense population very few of whom can afford to fly. it has been wonderful being able to hear birdsong/ have peace and quiet and not to be woken up at 5.30am. that's why.
Millions of people don’t live under airport flight paths at all. Not even close. A small number of thousands at the most in the UK. Millions live by busy roads and it’s been proven that the noise from a busy road is worse to live near that an airport. And it’s the ‘poor’ who make up the vast majority of passengers on flights. They won’t be able to fly post COVID probably as flying might become something those with money can do In the future anyway just like in the olden days at the beginning of passenger aviation.
The tax payer is going to pay either way. And pay big. Aviation is a big industry and well paid so lots of tax pounds going into the coffers and paying for the nhs. Also knock on affect of other businesses and industries and lack of flying and increased cost of what flying remains will hamper their competitiveness and access to global markets so other businesses and industries set to shrink with inevitable redundancies. All this will be picked up by the tax payer one way or another.
The thing is the industry doesn’t need to be bailed out. It just needs sensible measures to enable people to return to flying. The average Brit is not going to want to swap their annual pilgrimage to the costa del sol for a caravan in a rainy field in the UK any time soon. They might do without for one year but they’ll soon break.
why?
Yea, I can't think of any reason why we might not want shitloads of planes constantly consuming vast quantities of fossil fuel.
Should probably start with shipping or cars if you're worried about overall emissions, no?
Should probably start with shipping or cars if you’re worried about overall emissions, no?
Or an even bigger contributor, meat consumption....😊
Should probably start with shipping or cars if you’re worried about overall emissions, no?
No, we should start everywhere.
Doubt the insurance industry will want to underwrite that risk
A friend of mine hold a senior position in a multi national insurer. They are flooded with work, and he said they are very busy working out how to protect their balance sheets whilst re-wording future policies. So, more expensive and harder to benefit the policies will be.
I admit I was estimating but I just did some research, a bit riled by what I felt was a dismissive attitude to the experiences of others, and it looks like millions is right. 1.6m would have been affected just by the new run way at Heathrow. Not all of those people are poor but many of the worst hit areas are -remarkably- areas of social deprivation. I don't know what poor with quote marks around it means. Probably some way of separating the speaker of the word from the reality it signifies.