Getting killed by terrorists on a plane is almost certainly going to turn out to be a much lower risk than getting and spreading this virus by the time 2022 comes around. And yet it took how long after 9/11 for the repeatedly government-bailed out US airline industry to see a return to pre-9/11 passenger counts? And Americans are still paying the massive bill for the US actions taken to try to make people feel secure to fly and do much more than just fly. Our national response to 9/11 and the time it took for passenger demand to recover will probably end up looking like a very fast recovery compared to what how it goes with this virus situation. In terms of passengers � cost to travel by air, this virus situation may mean much higher international long-haul travel costs In a way that didn�t happen as a result of 9/11.

"with a significant dependency on tourism" really ? They do not act this way at present and visa requirements for some nationals are stringent. The tourism levy tough is a good thing. What is amazing that they are talking about closing the country for a long time, we are not talking about a situation lasting for a couple of month.

And yes, we will have to learn to live with this virus, medication might become available (like for HIV) , but a vaccine for a Coronavirus is not so simple.

Another thing around testing requirement before you're given a boarding pass - how would this work in inter-connected tickets that start in small towns. Lets say I have a flight (single-ticket) GST-JNU-SEA-DXB, and the Emirates flight SEA-DXB would require a test taken before issuing a boarding pass. Or DRO-IAH-SCL, where entry into Chile requires a negative test and negative test kits don't exist in the small durango airport only at IAH.

How exactly will even the boarding pass be issued when obviously a small outstation like GST or DRO will never have test kits needed for international flights. Typically all documents and requirements are checked at the first point of departure. Will this mean there will now be a need to run tests during short connections? Will minimum connection times be increased to 5-6 hours to account for this?

This is just one small example - there can be many more similar ones.

Testing people at the airport (besides walk-through temperature scanners) is simply not feasible at scale.

Not feasible now, but with the will and money behind the desire to resume flying (which there will be, if only by airlines to keep business) then who knows what advances we could make in 3-6months or more

I would assume a huge percentage of travelers would never entertain even a 5 day quarantine. This may be a plan that is workable, but hardly anyone will use it. It certainly doesn't bring back the airlines.

It is amazing to go back and read the early posts in this thread. Life comes at you fast.

I do believe we have some smaller result time RT-PCRs right now that aren't scaled yet. Abbot has a point of care test that's as low as 5 minutes... There's clearly scale issues when you're talking an airplane, and there's not enough known for time period when you're shedding enough compared to when you might test positive.. and the issue of false negatives. I don't get why people are getting so excited from antibody testing, since even if you looked at the IgG and IgM lines you're still in a margin of error where someone could be actively shedding. I was working with someone recently who's had a few tests done and still is shedding, despite no reported symptoms. We don't even know enough to know if detected antibodies would be neutralizing. All in all I think I'm gonna be dealing with this stuff for a long while.

Testing at airports would be fairly meaningless since they won't show anything for a very recent exposure, whether antigen or antibody.

It wouldn�t be acceptable to a huge percentage of travelers. But there are segments of travelers that would tolerate it.

Migrant laborers and migrant students may accept travel with 5 day quarantines. People going on longer-term business/work assignments or extended vacations/sabbaticals may accept it too. People doing long VFR trips may accept such. But it indeed won�t work out for most of those trips that the flying travelers had been accustomed to doing.

The airlines are going to struggle to survive, and those which survive into next year are going to be flying into a strong headwind since 2019 air travel demand levels are not going to be back anytime soon.

Obviously most of the folks on this thread are professional travelers.
Serious Question: What on earth will you do if you get sick when on the road? You can't hop on a flight and head back home. This is the crux I have been contemplating.

I will assume that by sick you mean with the current panic. If minor Isolate, self medicate, connect with and maintain contact with the necessary people. If not it wouldn't be the 5th or 6th time I was treated in a foreign clinic or hospital (stitches, concussion, cholera . . )

I would not travel right now to a country where that was a serious risk. But I have had my appendix out overseas in Canada before. I stayed there for three weeks while I recovered. It wasn't ideal, but it was fine.

It�s not the end of the world for me or my loved ones to get sick when away and require local medical care, but a little planning and investment upfront in ways can go a long way to help minimize the chances of becoming a fatality because of the differences between healthcare at home and away. And such planning/investment makes things easier for the traveler and/or their survivors in the event of a major health problem abroad. In some instances this planning/investment would mean avoiding travel to some places.

No, I think he means sick with aggressive symptoms of the Coronavirus. Not sick with irrational panic.

Many travellers are not holiday makers or short-term business travellers. A lot of travel is for family reunion purposes. I have family in Italy, my wife is Swedish but we live in Australia. Caring for our families isn't possible under the current restrictions. I fully understand the need for quarantine but I hope governments will show some compassion and logic in allowing a shorter - more manageable quarantine such as home based backed up by random checks etc.