NEW ORLEANS – The coronavirus pandemic has disrupted air travel so much that the airline industry is expected to lose more than $80 billion in 2020, according to the International Air Transport Association. Loyola professor and author Chris Schaberg, meanwhile, says the industry was already facing threats on several fronts.
Schaberg, featured on this week’s Biz Talks Podcast, said COVID may have just sped up changes that were already on the horizon.
“There are several pressures on air travel that are not all related to the pandemic,” he said. “There’s climate change, which is [affecting] the younger generation’s interest in flying and traveling as much. And then there’s our ability to go virtual and how we’ve been primed for that for many years with our smart phones and software.”
Schaberg said these factors have combined with the 2020 pandemic to cast the industry in a new light.
“We now have a generation that has seen air travel stop on a dime and they recognize that this is not necessarily something that will just keep going and going,” he said. “And I think that’s going to have a psychological effect on the up-and-coming generation, who won’t just see it as the default.”
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