The Legal Impacts of COVID-19 in the Travel, Tourism and Hospitality Industry

1 Never Let a Crisis Go To Waste: The Future for Commercial Aviation Andrew Charlton Charles Stotler 1 1. Current Picture for Aviation Industry – Effects of COVID-19 Crisis; 2. Legal Foundations of Aviation; 3. Back to COVID-19 – Outlook and the Four Possible Scenarios; 4. Conclusions – Better Angels of Our Nature. 1. Current Picture for Aviation Industry – Effects of COVID-19 Crisis It is neither profound nor particularly insightful to note that the COVID-19 pandemic has changed everything for the travel and tourism industries. The effects are systemic, and all actors from the transport sector, to hotels, restaurants and tourist venues are suffering from lockdowns, mandatory furloughs and the difficulties of trying to maintain some semblance of normalcy whilst working from home, when possible. One industry that cannot by its very nature mitigate many of the difficulties arising out of the crisis is the aviation industry, with 3.5 million flights cancelled through 30 June and, as estimated by IATA, 314B US$ of lost revenues 2 . Estimates on passenger traffic in the wake of the crisis indicate reductions ranging from 77% to 95% in countries around the world. The degree and direction of change can be monitored on a day-to-day basis. More difficult is to predict what will come after the dust settles. We know where we have come from and what has happened since, the question is: where will we go from here? In a recent edition of the Aviation Intelligence Reporter – a monthly aviation trade publication –, Aviation Advocacy elaborated four scenarios, ranging from forwards-looking and utopian to backwards-looking and dystopian 3 . The first scenario is business as usual – a “nothing to see here, please move along” mentality that we can just pick up where we left off. The second scenario is that some change will come – an attempt to keep the current legal and regulatory system with adaptations to the new environment. The third scenario, in some ways the most likely, is a return to the legal and regulatory scheme of yore – government owned and operated airlines providing essential services. Finally, the fourth scenario is the possibility for a blank slate – rethinking the aviation industry from the ground up. 1 Andrew Charlton, FRAeS, is Managing Director of Aviation Advocacy, an independent air transport strategic and government affairs consultancy based in Switzerland. Charles Stotler is an Associate with Aviation Advocacy and Co-Director of the Center for Air and Space Law at the University of Mississippi School of Law. 2 Brian Pearce, “COVID-19 Updated Impact Assessment” IATA (14 April 2020) https://www.iata.org/en/iata- repository/publications/economic-reports/covid-fourth-impact-assessment/ . 3 Aviation Advocacy, Aviation Intelligence Reporter (April 2020) https://www.aviationadvocacy.aero/services/word/the-aviation-intelligence-reporter/ .