2019年是全球航空运输业连续第10年实现盈利，这使行业分析师们对2020年的增长充满信心，并预测航空公司将实现293亿美元的利润。预测称，2020年旅客人数将增长4％，至47.2亿人次。人们普遍相信，2019年的增长说明即使在艰难的贸易环境中，航空运输业也不会陷入金融危机。
 
2019 was the global air transport industry’s 10th consecutive year of profitability and forecasters were confident of an uptick in 2020 that would see airlines post a $29.3 billion profit. Passenger numbers would increase 4% to 4.72 billion, the forecasts said. And there was general confidence that 2019 illustrated the industry would no longer plunge into financial crisis even when countering a difficult trade environment.

然而，COVID-19新冠疫情的到来不仅重写了航空经济学规则手册，还将它撕得粉碎。

COVID-19 has not just rewritten the airline economics rulebook—it has devoured it.

关于2020年的航空运输业危机，人们必须记住的是，即使疫情后的恢复进展相对顺利（与历史上大多数年份相比，2019年的表现仍然算是良好），只有20~30家航空公司达到了投资者评级的水平。 航空公司的链条很长，它们的财务状况已经十分脆弱，背负着沉重的债务，并且容易受到任何现金冲击的影响，更不用说新冠疫情状态下的“淘汰赛”了。

What must be remembered about the 2020 crisis is that even when it was going relatively well—and 2019 was still good compared to most years in previous decades—it was only 20 to 30 airlines that were performing at investor-grade levels. A long tail of airlines followed that were already in a fragile financial position, carried significant debt and were vulnerable to any cash shock, let alone the knockout punch that COVID delivered.

有一个可引起双重困境的现实是，大多数航空公司不仅负债累累，而且在2020年生存下来的航空公司的财务状况将在2021年进一步杠杆化。

The double-grim reality is that most airlines not only went into the pandemic with too much debt, but those that survive 2020 will go into 2021 even further leveraged.

生存是今年大多数航空公司的头等大事，但最终该行业必须重新评估长期以来的预期，即债务能否成为他们开展业务的基础。

Survival is the overriding priority for most airlines this year, but ultimately this industry must reevaluate long-held assumptions that debt is the basis on which it does business.