COVID-19 Quarantines And Border Closures Continued Longer Than Anticipated

The global net of quarantines and border closures due to the COVID-19 crisis have continued far longer than most anticipated.

For the most part, Americans cannot travel into much of Europe; Europe itself is talking about potential returns to stronger lockdowns in October; China, where the virus hit first and dissipated earliest, is almost alone in resurrecting live events this year, but they are almost entirely based on domestic attendance.

Willie Walsh, the recently-retired former CEO of International Airlines Group (IAG), believes that the airline industry will never return to its pre-pandemic state.

“I think there’s certainly going to be a ‘new normal’,” Willie Walsh, the recently-retired former CEO of International Airlines Group (IAG), said in a live online interview as part of Eurocontrol’s Aviation Hardtalk series Sept. 22. “I don’t see the industry ever going back to the way it was because there’s going to be so much repair that needs to be done.” 

Aviation Week flight data shows that utilization rates have indeed stalled across three major regions, Europe, China, and the US, in August.