Aviation has suffered its downturns, but nothing like the rapid impact of covid-19 on world airline fleets. Thousands of aircraft are parked, as detailed in this video from the Ishrion Aviation YouTube channel.

6 COMMENTS

  1. I fear that if economic activity isn’t resumed soon, we will be facing a worldwide depression the likes of which we never could have imagined. I am more concerned about this than I am the virus.

  2. Wow. It’s one thing to read or hear about the extent of the airlines reduction in operations, but the video really drives home the true scale of the cutbacks. Considering how long it will take to reactivate each one of those planes, it is going to be a very long time before the airlines return to full capacity, eve if the customers are there. The true return to “normal” will come when an effective vaccine is developed and rolled out to the world population. Considering the amount of research being done, I’m guessing it will be much quicker than the usual 18 months to get regulatory approval. The problem is that, while this is the first global pandemic in modern times, it won’t be the last. The extreme level of mobility of the global population virtually guarantees any highly contagious disease will spread faster than governments’ abilities to control its spread. Airlines are the best mechanism for rapid spread. The challenge for air carriers is to see if they can develop effective means for addressing that issue, just as they did following 9/11 for combating terrorism.

  3. >>Considering how long it will take to reactivate each one of those planes, it is going to be a very long time before the airlines return to full capacity

    Customer demand will not return all at once. It will come back gradually over time. The airplanes can be pulled back out of storage fast enough that reactivation of airframes won’t be the pacing item. The passenger demand will drive the rate at which airplanes are pulled back into service.

    There will also be some balance between airlines (the ones that do see demand) electing to receive new airplanes that they already had on order versus the reactivation of stored aircraft. It is reasonable to assume that at least some of those “stored” airframes will never return to service because they simply won’t be needed.

    One thing is for sure: any bank or lessor that built a balance sheet on assumed residual value of used aircraft could easily be in big trouble.

  4. My DPE activity was heavily dependent on feeding the pilot shortage. I’ll just go lie on the beach (when reopened) until further notice!

LEAVE A REPLY