IATA's post-Covid call

The 78th Annual General Meeting of IATA in Doha (June 19-21, 2022) was a celebration that aviation is back with a bang. The first full meeting in the post-Covid era, there was renewed enthusiasm, and the industry reviewed the past two years and set new objectives for the global aviation industry to achieve over the next few years.

IATA Director General Willie Walsh was by turns upbeat, sanguine and cautious in his opening state of the industry speech. As he said," Aviation is resilient. And we are rebounding."

He is right when said "People who longed for the freedom to fly are taking to the skies again and in growing numbers. By next year, most markets should see traffic reach or exceed pre-pandemic levels.

Air cargo stood out as a lifeline for vaccines, supply chains, and airline revenues throughout the COVID-19 crisis. And it has grown to be an even more vital contributor to revenues.

Our industry is now leaner, tougher, and nimbler. Our latest analysis shows losses in 2021 close to $42 billion, a huge loss, but down from our earlier estimate of $52 billion. And we now believe that global losses will be cut further, to $9.7 billion this year. Industry-wide profit should be on the horizon in 2023. " While the outlook is positive, the business environment is challenging. Which is the challenging part

• The outlook for GDP growth is 3.4% this year. Not bad but down on earlier forecasts.
• The World Bank expects energy prices to soar by 50 per cent compared with 2021.
• And fixing battered balance sheets carrying debts of $650 billion will be a monumental challenge.

Creating a workable framework

IATA has called for governments to apply the lessons learned from the dismantling of global connectivity in response to Covid-19 to ensure that future global health threats can be effectively managed without closing borders.