Can airlines survive coronavirus?

Business Daily

BBC

News, Business

4.4 • 796 Ratings

🗓️ 17 March 2020

⏱️ 18 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Travel restrictions and a slump in demand due to the coronavirus have forced airlines to cancel most flights and temporarily reduce staff. Will this mean a permanent end to the low-cost travel that many of us have become used to?

Travel expert Simon Calder joins the show to round up the latest industry news and what it means for travellers, while aviation consultant John Strickland explains why the airlines were so vulnerable to begin with. Meanwhile, calls are rising for governments to bail the airline industry out, but finance expert Frances Coppola argues there are many sectors that are just as deserving.

(Picture: Plane interior with passengers wearing masks; Credit: Getty Images)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello there, I'm Ed Butler and welcome to Business Daily from the BBC World Service.
0:06.1	Coming up, planes, trains, pubs, restaurants. They're all shutting down across Europe and beyond,
0:12.1	with ordinary workers feeling cutter drift.
0:15.0	There's stress, not just myself, but my friends, my colleague. We're all just kind of in a state of shock and panic.
0:23.2	The airline industry, it could be on the brink of collapse, we're told.
0:27.5	Does it deserve a government bailout?
0:29.8	I think without government support, we are going to be left with little or no airline industry capacity.
0:35.9	It really isn't a question of airlines are nice to have,
0:38.8	so they are essentials to have. That's coming up on Business Daily from the BBC.
0:46.6	Pretty much all major European airlines have been announcing the grounding of planes over the next
0:52.2	couple of months. Ryanair, one of Europe's largest, has said it will cut capacity by 80% Air France by between 70 and 90%.
0:59.7	Norwegian.
1:00.8	B.A. and Virgin by a similar amount, an Austrian airlines, says it's terminating all regular flight operations from tomorrow night.
1:08.3	This, in response to entry bans being imposed by countries
1:11.1	around the globe, of course, and the rapid decline in the demand for air travel. The COVID-19 outbreak
1:17.5	has led to chaos and confusion pretty much everywhere. As the BBC's Benji Guy discovered,
1:23.3	speaking to would-be passengers at London's Gatwick Airport yesterday.
1:29.5	I'm travelling to Germany right now.
1:34.5	We lost the next flight, and we don't know what we will do around this moment.
1:37.3	Are you concerned about whether you're going to be able to make it to Germany?
1:40.9	Yeah, I think we'll get to Germany if they don't close the borders.
1:43.2	Yeah, so we've just got off the cruise.
	...

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