Preparing for ‘COVID-27’: Lessons in management focus – An Australian general aviation perspective

This paper considers the observed impacts of COVID-19 on the behaviour of a cross-section of the general aviation (GA) community in Australia. It specifically observes the nature of management decision making observed in the sector, and the financial impacts of such choices. This paper highlights a lack of financial acumen in the Australian GA community which is likely to inhibit resilience in the sector and limit its ability to learn from the economic shock COVID-19 represents. Finally, the paper proposes several initiatives to improve the quality of management decision making in the sector's leadership, with a view to improving its financial outlook and visibility to policy makers.     

Risks,resilience, and pathways to sustainable aviation: A COVID-19 perspective

This paper discusses the COVID-19 pandemic as an opportunity to reconsider the foundations of the global aviation system. There is much evidence that air transport creates opportunities as well as risks. While the former accrue to businesses and individuals, risks are imposed on society. Pandemics, in which aviation has a role as a vector of pathogen distribution, as well as the sector's contribution to climate change are examples of long-standing negative externalities that continue to be ignored in assessments of aviation's economic performance and societal importance. As commercial aviation has shown limited economic resilience throughout its history, this short paper questions whether a return to business-as-usual, supported by very significant State aid payments, is desirable. The volume growth model championed by industry and aviation proponents may have to be replaced with an alternative model of a slimmed air transport system that is economically less vulnerable and accounting for its environmental impacts.     

The future of airports post COVID-19

COVID-19 pandemic has hit most sectors of the world and has led to many industries coming to a standstill. It has led to restrictions of movement and travel ban. As a result of these restrictions, transport sector especially in aviation has impacted badly.With the uncertainty of further impact of the current situation, there is a likelihood of the aviation business rebounding at a slower pace bringing V-shape and U-shape recovery as per analysis of economic impacts on civil aviation by International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO (2020). Currently, airline capacity is down 70 to 80 percent in April 2020 compared to April 2019, and multiple large airlines have temporarily ceased operations. Largely, almost 60 percent of the global fleet was grounded in early April 2020 as per McKinsey report (Curley et al., 2020).In order to support the sinking capacities and revenues, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) calls on the European governments to provide relief to their airlines to sustain their operations. Furthermore, this document highlights the future of airport and air transport industry based on revenue generation sources, cost control strategies and integration of innovations with respect to variable demand and capacity during and post COVID-19.     

To bargain or not to bargain: Airlines,legitimacy and nonmarket strategy in a COVID-19 world

Nonmarket strategy – strategic actions directed at influencing the governmental, legalregulatory, and societal environment of business – is a key factor in an airlines' competitive position yet remains relatively under-analyzed in aviation research. The COVID-19 crisis has created a heightened role for nonmarket strategy and our paper argues that in deciding how to respond to a variety of policy measures introduced by governments, airline executives need to take into account the perceived legitimacy from the flying public of their response to governments. Our paper presents an integrative framework to analyze airlines' nonmarket response to COVID-19 governmental policy measures. Using a two-by-two matrix, we identify key conceptual links between industry's nonmarket response, the health impacts of a given policy measure as well as its economic costs for the airlines. Our study concludes that, unless economic stakes in a given policy measure are high, airlines do not risk active bargaining with governments over the content of that measure. Such bargaining could trigger a delegitimation cascade: a self-reinforcing process in which key stakeholders reassess their view of airlines' conduct and the industry's broader societal impact. Bargaining is pursued when economic impacts of policy measures are high, and in that case, the choice between cooperative and adversarial posture towards the government depends on the health impact of a given policy.     

COVID-19 pandemic and prospects for recovery of the global aviation industry

The COVID-19 pandemic ushered a wave of economic decline across the world due to disruptions in the supply and demand chain for the travel market. This study examines potential recovery pathways from the global aviation industry following the severe negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Using archival and secondary data mainly from Flightradar24, ICAO, IATA and EUROCONTROL, the study found that the pandemic inflicted a heavy toll on global aviation, which resulted in ratings downgrades, liquidation and bankruptcy of several airlines and airports due to severe cash burn instigated by travel restrictions. Although the industry is opening up, the recovery process seems much slower than anticipated, which could see more jobs and airlines failing in the absence of relevant support. The study recommends that as the sector opens up, it does so in a responsible manner, which puts measures that protect travellers, reduce costs, increase efficiency, and ensure a quality customer experience anchored on employees' health and customer safety. Recovery should also occur with the view to build back better in line with the provisions of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction and at the same time responding to the dictates of Agenda 2030 on sustainable development goals (SDGs).     

The effect of aviation responses to the control of imported COVID-19 cases

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has a lasting and unprecedented negative impact on the global aviation industry. While countries such as China have successfully curbed the domestic outbreak of the virus with various restrictive and preventive measures, the challenge of avoiding imported cases remains. More importantly, it is still unclear to what extent these implemented aviation emergency responses have effectively mitigated the transmission risk of the virus. This paper provides an empirical assessment of aviation responses to the control of imported COVID-19 cases, with a focus on the following three strategies: the “circuit breaker” policy, the “negative Nucleic Acid testing (NAT)”, and the “double negative tests” requirement. Non-recursive structural equation models (SEM) with latent variables were applied to detailed international flight data and individual epidemic survey data of Guangzhou, China, between May 1 and November 30, 2020. The results show that the “double negative tests” measure has a positive effect on eliminating the number of SARS-CoV-2 carriers, while the effects of single “circuit breaker” and its co-intervention with “negative NAT” are conterproductive. This study provides important implications to civil aviation agencies in regard to medium and long-term risk control of imported cases. Specifically, although the circuit breaker mechanism was designed to target on the risk control of imported COVID-19 cases, it may be more effective to carefully maintain a timely and reliable pre-boarding screening and testing to curb the number of imported cases.     

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on current tertiary aviation education and future careers: Students’ perspective

This study investigates Australian undergraduate tertiary aviation students' perceptions of the aviation industry and skills required to succeed following the COVID-19 pandemic. By developing an understanding of the skills students perceive to be necessary for their careers following the COVID-19 pandemic, comparisons can be drawn with industry perspectives to determine whether these perspectives align and, more importantly, support students’ successful development of skills as sought by the industry. An online survey of current undergraduate tertiary aviation students at Australian universities was conducted to determine the perceived impediments, additional skills required, post-graduation plans and how university courses should evolve post-COVID-19. The results show that students are cognisant of the current oversupply of aviation professionals due to the downturn in the industry and are seeking further support with the development of non-technical skills to better prepare themselves to be competitive following graduation. These findings have implications for both undergraduate aviation students and universities offering an undergraduate aviation program. By considering these findings universities can adapt their programs to better prepare students and support the development of skilled aviation professionals, equipped to deal with challenges of the post-COVID-19 aviation industry.     

How did COVID-19 impact air transportation? A first peek through the lens of complex networks

The current outbreak of COVID-19 is an unprecedented event in air transportation. This is probably the first time that global aviation contributed to the planet-wide spread of a pandemic, with casualties in over two hundred countries. As of August 23rd, 2020, the number of infected cases has topped 23 million, reportedly relating to more than 800,000 deaths worldwide. However, there is also a second side of the pandemic: it has led to an unmatched singularity in the global air transportation system. In what could be considered a highly uncoordinated, almost chaotic manner, countries have closed their borders, and people are reluctant/unable to travel due to country-specific lock-down measures. Accordingly, aviation is one of the industries that has been suffering most due to the consequences of the pandemic outbreak, despite probably being one of its largest initial drivers. In this study, we investigate the impact of COVID-19 on global air transportation at different scales, ranging from worldwide airport networks where airports are nodes and links between airports exist when direct flights exist, to international country networks where countries are contracted as nodes, and to domestic airport networks for representative countries/regions. We focus on the spatial-temporal evolutionary dynamics of COVID-19 in air transportation networks. Our study provides a comprehensive empirical analysis on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on aviation from a complex system perspective using network science tools.     

Airport user experience unpacked: Conceptualizing its potential in the face of COVID-19

Given the unprecedented challenges imposed on the aviation industry by the COVID-19 pandemic, this paper proposes a new perspective on airport user experience as a field of study to unlock its potential as a basis for strategic roadmapping. Through an integrative literature review, this study points out a dominant focus, in practice and research, on customer experience and service quality, as opposed to user experience, to help airports gain a competitive edge in an increasingly commoditized industry. The review highlights several issues with this understanding of experience, as users other than passengers, such as employees, working for the airport and its myriad stakeholders, as well as visitors, are largely omitted from study. Given the complexity of the system, operationally, passengers are generally reduced to smooth flows of a passive mass, which this study argues is both a missed opportunity and a vulnerability exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Major events apart from COVID-19 are used to show the negative effects this simplification of user experience has had. Based on solutions and models proposed in previous studies, a conceptual model has been developed to illustrate the postulated potential of a deeper and more holistic study of airport user experience to make airport systems generally more agile, flexible and future-proof. As such, the paper advocates to utilize the user experience as a basis for strategic planning to equip airports with the know-how to manage not just daily operations more effectively but also the aftermath of and recovery from major events like the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, with the user experience at the center of the strategic roadmap, airports can plan ahead to mitigate the impact of future scenarios. The importance of future research and the use of existing research are discussed.     

突发事件对我国铁路客运量的干预特征研究

基于新冠肺炎疫情等突发事件对人们日常生活出行的影响,结合X-13ARIMASEATS季节调整模型的自动识别最优ARIMA模型和检测突发事件离群值功能,使用脉冲函数和阶梯函数设计基于离群值的突发事件的干预变量,构建铁路客运量的时间序列ARIMAX干预模型,对铁路客运量近年受到的SARS疫情、铁路客票实名制政策和新冠肺炎疫情等突发事件的冲击趋势进行干预比较分析。结果显示,SARS和新冠肺炎疫情对铁路客运量冲击较大,SARS疫情在冲击滞后的第5~6期铁路客运量基本得到恢复,新冠肺炎疫情对铁路客运量冲击一直在持续中,铁路客运实名制政策实施社会性较强,冲击具有波动性和不稳定性特征,持续时间较短;相对季节调整模型的趋势分析优势,干预模型拟合预测精度显著高于季节调整模型,预测显示我国铁路客运量在缓慢持续回暖中。     

Ultra Long-Haul: An emerging business model accelerated by COVID-19

The COVID-19 outbreak has sent shockwaves throughout the aviation industry, sending a myriad of liquidity-strapped airlines into administration or part government ownership. In turn, this paper argues that the novel phenomenon of Ultra Long Haul (ULH) operations already maintains the necessary characteristics to generate a competitive advantage that will not only succeed, but outperform other business models, in a post COVID-19 era. Our modelling and scenario analysis results suggest that point-to-point ULH services, with access to a strong domestic feeder system, will not only require minimal adjustments to cope with COVID-19, but will simultaneously produce higher seat-load factors and yields, heightened network flexibility, and unique health benefits tied to its ability to bypass densely populated hub airports.     

European airlines′ strategic responses to the COVID-19 pandemic (January-May, 2020)

This paper analyzes airline reactions to the COVID-19 crisis in the spring months of 2020 along the typical crisis response strategies of retrenchment, persevering, innovating, and exit. Based on the content analysis of 148 news items filtered from a daily aviation industry newsletter published during the unfolding of the crisis in Europe (from January 6 to June 2), the paper specifies and differentiates European airlines’ strategic responses, outlines key implications for the post-COVID-19 competitive landscape, and raises attention points for managers and policy makers.     

Changes in car and bus usage amid the COVID-19 pandemic: Relationship with land use and land price

This study aimed to explore the impacts of COVID-19 on car and bus usage and their relationships with land use and land price. Large-scale trip data of car and bus usage in Daejeon, South Korea, were tested. We made a trip-chain-level data set to analyze travel behavior based on activity-based travel volumes. Hexagonal cells were used to capture geographical explanatory variables, and a mixed-effect regression model was adopted to determine the impacts of COVID-19. The modeling outcomes demonstrated behavioral differences associated with using cars and buses amid the pandemic. People responded to the pandemic by reducing their trips more intensively during the daytime and weekends. Moreover, they avoided crowded or shared spaces by reducing bus trips and trips toward commercial areas. In terms of social equity, trips of people living in wealthier areas decreased more than those of people living in lower-priced areas, especially trips by buses. The findings contribute to the previous literature by adding a fundamental reference for the different impacts of pandemics on two universal transportation modes.     

Does COVID-19 affect metro use in Taipei?

This paper provides the first evidence of the causal effect of COVID-19 on metro use using real-time data from the Taipei Metro System in Taiwan. In contrast to other cities or countries, Taiwan did not enforce strict social lockdowns or mandatory stay-at-home orders to combat COVID-19. The major prevention strategies to the pandemic in Taiwan include promoting social distancing, mandating the wearing of face masks in public areas, and requiring all international arrivals to quarantine for 14 days. Using administrative data on confirmed cases of COVID-19 and ridership from metro stations with the difference-in-differences model, we find that an additional new confirmed case of COVID-19 reduces metro use by 1.43% after controlling for local socio-demographic variables associated with ridership and the number of international arrivals to Taiwan. This result implies that the reduction in metro trips is attributable to decreases in residents' use of public transportation due to perceived health risks. Furthermore, the effect of COVID-19 on metro use disproportionally impacts stations with different characteristics. The effect is more pronounced for metro stations connected to night markets, shopping centers, or colleges. Although decreases in metro ridership lower the revenue of the Taipei Metro System, our results indicate a tradeoff between increased financial burdens of public transportation systems and reducing medical expenses associated with COVID-19.     

An assessment of air passenger confidence a year into the COVID-19 crisis: A segmentation analysis of passengers in Norway

The COVID-19 crisis has become the most intense and long-lasting in the history of aviation. There is already a significant literature on the immediate impact of the outbreak, as well as on speculation on the future evolution of the industry. This paper seeks to contribute to this discussion by assessing a year into the crisis the demand related aspects and passenger behavioural impacts of the pandemic. Specifically, the paper aims to identify discrete market segments of air passengers according to their shared attitudes and preferences about air travel in light of the COVID-19 crisis, as well as past behaviour and future travel intentions. To achieve this, we analyse data from a large (n = 2096) online questionnaire survey of air passengers in Norway. The cluster analysis identifies four distinct passenger segments, with each displaying varying attitudes, behaviours, and levels of concern about air travel. One of these groups, described as the ‘Apprehensive Elders’, were identified as having the highest level of concern about flying, and subsequently showed a sharp decline in their intention to travel in the future. Another group, termed the ‘Cautious Commuters’, showed similarly enhanced levels of concerns about flying, but maintained a high propensity to fly following the pandemic despite these concerns. Regarding possible interventions to increase confidence in flying in the future, across all segments the data shows a clear preference for more ‘traditional’ active interventions, including wearing of face masks and enforcement of physical distancing, over and above passive or technological interventions. Norway represents a valuable case as a possible signal for future policy and practice in relation to the recovery of air travel following the pandemic. The findings have important implications for air transport managers and decision makers in terms of managing the perceptions and expectations of different passenger groups as air travel begins to return.     

Government support to airlines in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic

This paper assesses government support measures to the air transport sector following the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic from two points of view. First, it explores the factors that shape governments’ willingness to support airlines. This is followed by a discussion on the various types of support that may be provided and how country-specific parameters influence the choice of measures. Second, it analyses the implications of government support in three dimensions relevant to air transport policy: competition and liberalisation, airline ownership and control, and environmental sustainability. The analysis suggests that most governments give a high priority to maintaining air transport connectivity in order to protect economic activity and jobs, in aviation itself and in related sectors such as tourism. The trade-off between ensuring connectivity and maintaining competition after the COVID-19 pandemic is a challenge with several political and economic dimensions. The re-orientation of public policy in the aftermath of the pandemic may limit the relative importance of the policy priorities that shaped the evolution of the air transport sector before the crisis, especially those related to climate change and the environment. The role of government and public authorities at all levels – especially the type and duration of measures affecting transport operations – will be crucial for the future development of the aviation industry.     

Elderly mobility during the COVID-19 pandemic: A qualitative exploration in Kunming,China

The outbreak of COVID-19 in China started at the end of December 2019. This led to a series of containment measurements to control the spread of COVID-19. Despite of the widely reported effects of these measures, inadequate attention has gone to their social impacts. The elderly, as one of the most susceptible populations, has experienced a considerable reduction in mobility.This paper explores the role mobility played and how the social environment influenced elderly mobility in the first 2 months of the COVID-19 outbreak. We surveyed 186 families with a total of 248 elderly people in Kunming. The results show that mobility improves the quality of daily living, such as access to grocery shopping, maintenance of outdoor activities for health cultivation and preserving social networks even during the pandemic. Four themes relating to social environment emerged from the data as elements influencing elderly mobility during the pandemic: social pressure, practice of the virtue of Xiao, the social norm of respecting the aged and the impacts of technological advances. Among them, the virtue of Xiao enabled the elderly to stay in place in the early phase of COVID-19 by fulfilling their needs for daily necessities and social interactions, whilst being less technology-savvy further excluded them socially by restraining them from restoring mobility after the lifting of travel restrictions.     

Estimating the impact of COVID-19 on air travel in the medium and long term using neural network and Monte Carlo simulation

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a substantial impact on the airline industry. Air travel in the United States declined in 2020 with significantly lower domestic and international flights. The dynamic change and uncertainty in the trend of COVID-19 have made it difficult to predict future air travel. This paper aims at developing and testing neural network models that predict domestic and international air travel in the medium and long term based on residents' daily trips by distance, economic condition, COVID-19 severity, and travel restrictions. Data in the United States from various sources were used to train and validate the neural network models, and Monte Carlo simulations were constructed to predict air travel under uncertainty of the pandemic and economic growth. The results show that weekly economic index (WEI) is the most important predictor for air travel. Additionally, daily trips by distance play a more important role in the prediction of domestic air travel than the international one, while travel restrictions seem to have an impact on both. Sensitivity analysis results for four different scenarios indicate that air travel in the future is more sensitive to the change in WEI than the changes in COVID-19 variables. Additionally, even in the best-case scenario, when the pandemic is over and the economy is back to normal, it still takes several years for air travel to return to normal, as before the pandemic. The findings have significant contributions to the literature in COVID-19's impact on air transportation and air travel prediction.     

Including aviation emissions in the EU ETS: Much ado about nothing? A review

The European Community, motivated by the rapid growth of the aviation industry and related impacts on climate change, has decided to include aviation in the European Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS). Mitigation policies such as the EU ETS are considered to be necessary in order to change travel behaviour and induce operational and technological changes in the aviation industry that will result in lower environmental impacts. This paper reviews the available impact assessments of the proposed emissions trading scheme for airlines published between 2005 and 2009. It analyses the methods used and finds that the models used are often over-simplified, omitting important variables or that the reliability and robustness of the modelling results are reduced by linking models that are based on different assumptions. The paper also summarises the possible environmental (CO₂ emissions) and economic (air fares, demand for airline services, supply of airline services, competitiveness, GDP, carbon price) impacts in the studies reviewed for the year 2020. Overall, the effects are found to be small: for example, CO₂ emissions are expected to decline by a maximum of 3.8% and the maximum impact on GDP in the EU was found to be ?0.002%. The reasons for these insignificant impacts are analysed in this paper; it is also found that there are some positive aspects of including aviation in the EU ETS.     

Including aviation in the European emissions trading scheme: Impacts on the industry,CO2 emissions and macroeconomic activity in the EU

In July 2008, motivated by the expected high growth of aviation and the related impacts on climate change, the European Parliament adopted a directive to include airlines in the European Emissions Trading Scheme. This paper discusses possible impacts of this inclusion on the aviation industry in terms of CO₂ emissions and the macroeconomic activity in the EU. The analysis uses the Energy–Environment–Economy Model for Europe, a dynamic simulation model to investigate impacts of the European Emissions Trading Scheme on air transport. The impacts on air transport output and the macroeconomic effects are estimated to be small. This was robust to varying the carbon price. However, air transport CO₂ emissions were expected to decrease by up to 7.4%, which is more than that estimated previously and stems mainly from the supply-side reaction of the industry.