S c 0 TT y

Highlights:
- social distancing not possible on planes
- if one seat is left empty next to a PAX, load of aircraft is 50%
- if an entire row is left empty, load of aircraft is 30%
- hygiene kits will be given to all pax
- travel industry will change radically
- 2 week quarantine for pax entering Doha
- business travel is likely to be hit due to people getting comfortable with working from home and video calls
- ticket prices across the board likely to increase, no indication given
- recovery period unknown for travel industry

Man3

Just watched the interview, doesn't sound optimistic any soon for the stopovers in Doha, 14 days quarantine will be mandatory for months ahead.
Thinking about the reduction of passengers and the consequences on the price increase. IMO, passengers traveling with the people they already live with could still sit without any extra empty seats/rows, just as before...

IAN-UK

I'm sure the man has some good management credentials, but maths and economics don't seem to figure in his repertoire.

R2

I don't get why so many airline execs and 'industry experts' keep claiming airfares will go up in the (near) future.

There is a large surplus of aircraft in the world. Owners (leasing companies and airlines) don't want to keep them on the ground as it is waste of assets and they incur maintenance costs. It is in their interests to get them flying as soon there is the slightest signal that demand is picking up. Also, the high cargo prices drive this behaviour.

Competition will take care of the rest.

subject2load

@ R2 - I guess what they actually mean to say is “we would like to see fares go up” .... but that wouldn’t strike the right tone.

Either way, it doesn’t really matter what sort of projections they make, since we know very well - as you point out - that market / commercial forces, and the time-old laws of supply & demand, are what ultimately count in the real world.

ph-ndr

The reason many speculate on airfares in the nearfuture is not that there is a surplus of both crew and airplanes available. The problem is that there is a huge mix of which markets have the virus under control and not, and differing stages of letting up various systems for quarantine and so on. This makes it very hard to predict where to ramp up frequencies, new destinatons, etc. ow fares are usually a function of available excess capacity in a mostly stable system of routes, markets and loads. Until this sorts out those problems there will be a lack of low fares for many markets, with the posible exceptions of markets that have demand that is just waiting for capacity to come available.
It's also unknown how many airlines that will be willing to take on sales early on to get people back into flying, as money is an issue for many airlines.

-A