According to the latest ICAO air passenger forecasts, airlines may be faced with 1.5 billion fewer international air travellers this year. In parallel, international seat capacity could drop by almost three-quarters, resulting in a 273 billion dollar loss compared to previously expected gross operating revenues.
“In the latest updated analysis, the analytical timeframe was extended for another three months to December 2020, and more reliable airfare data was used to calculate revenue reduction,” advised ICAO Secretary General Dr. Fang Liu.
ICAO has been providing regularly updated analyses on the economic impact of COVID-19 on air transport since early February 2020, and is providing continuous guidance to air transport planners, regulators, and operators. The projections are significant to many countries now planning their COVID-19 recovery scenarios, given the importance of tourism, global supply chains, and many other air connectivity factors to local socio-economic prosperity.
The full version of the new ICAO report, along with all other ICAO forecast and guidance materials, are available free of charge for governments, the industry and the general public through the UN aviation agency’s COVID-19 information portal.
Analysis of economic impacts of COVID-19 – Global and State-level
When assessing the economic impacts on civil aviation, ICAO works with many different scenarios in order to reflect the very uncertain nature of the current situation and the rapidly changing environment. In order to explore the potential economic implication of the COVID-19 pandemic for the near future, the full report is built around six different recovery paths under two indicative scenarios. The actual path will eventually depend upon various factors, inter alia, duration and magnitude of the outbreak and containment measures, availability of government assistance, consumers’ confidence and economic conditions.
- Baseline : hypothetical situation without COVID-19 outbreak with forecasts as originally planned;
- Indicative Scenario 1 – “V-Shaped” : follows the normal shape for recession where a brief period of contraction is followed by quick/smooth recovery – most optimistic path indicated with a
- Indicative Scenario 2 – “U-Shaped” : indicates prolonged contraction and muted recovery with a possibility of no return to trend line of growth (L-shaped) – most pessimistic path indicated with a