The crisis at Boeing in the U.S. is a big concern for me as a passenger on Boeing-built aircraft for domestic and international travel and as a beneficiary of many international cargo flights. Understandably, the U.S. government would express its support for the entire aviation industry.
Nevertheless, a coronal shock could change the world in a big way. Humans will not travel around the world like they used to, and they will try to get by with electronic conferences instead of face-to-face meetings. The technology already existed, so all that was left was for people to rethink their habits. Unlike face-to-face meetings, which require a little bit of skill and tool use, the excuse has been given that “you can’t have a real discussion in an electronic conference.” Still, when your health and life are at stake, this cannot be said. It’s probably not such a different opinion now to predict that many conferences will move to electronic conferencing, with each participant joining from his or her PC. Many people have already been forced to do so and have managed to cope with it.
Given this, will the airline industry be able to maintain the same level of demand that it has in the past? If the overall demand, including that of LCCs, drops, then the current transportation capacity will be excessive. Not only will we see a temporary drop in the coronal shock, but the depressed state may last quite a while. This change will be a severe challenge for tourist destinations betting on inbound tourism. Publicly funded U.S. aircraft manufacturing and aviation industries will also be judged on what the post-Corona world will look like.
What the post-Corona world will look like will depend on how this new infection is settled. If suppression is ineffective across the globe and the spread of the infection rages on until it spreads at once and gains collective immunity, the human cost will be great. Still, after that, society will return to normal. However, when there is a jumble of countries that are somewhat restrained and those that are not, it becomes tough for people to move across borders. In such a world, people may watch e-sports instead of the Olympics, and technology such as VR may become the norm instead of human mobility. Eventually, people might not have to flock to a city to live, work, or go to school.
Maybe the standard scenario is that the world will go back to the way it was, but I think it’s also essential to consider the possibility that that’s not the case.
