Coronavirus: Resilience of air travel means recovery will come in time

In the middle of a crisis it’s often hard to see beyond it, and to imagine life getting back to normal.  The latest crisis to hit the aviation industry, and particularly China, punctuating every conversation at the moment is the Coronavirus.  What the full effect will be is, as yet unknown, but for now as we reported earlier this week, China’s domestic air service market, and to some extent its international markets are seeing unprecedented reductions in capacity as the country tries to contain the virus.

For many in the industry this will be their first experience of disruption on this scale and many must be wondering how or when the industry will recover. Viruses, recessions and natural disasters have all hit air travel demand in the recent times, but at OAG, we know that these events, whilst always distressing and disruptive at the time, typically do have a short term impact on demand for air travel, but that the strength of demand means that passenger growth always returns.

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