Rafiq Jan
As the coronavirus pandemic continues to play havoc across the globe, devastating lives and countries’ economies in an unprecedented manner, the world is mulling over new ways to start international flights to rekindle life into an almost dead air travel industry.
Travel Bubble is also called Travel corridor, CoronaCorridor or Green lanes. It is a mutual agreement between a group of neighbouring countries to open their borders for each other’s citizens to travel without 14 days quarantining and various strict requirements. The idea is to allow business and leisure travelers a hassle-free choice to plan their journey under the specified umbrellas.
Birth of the name
Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, the three Baltic states spun this idea back in……to establish a trilateral agreement to allow their citizens travelling without any specific corona test requirements.
Since the contraction rate was significantly low and the safety management and control were well managed and in place, their travel industry welcomed the suggestions for the recovery of the depleted sector and the national economies.
Southeast Asia group
Singapore and Hongkong will be embarking upon this journey anytime soon. Both states had incredible response and control to curb the spread of microbe at early stages. That mutual trust of a robust system of governance gave them the confidence to resume business and leisure travel without the need for quarantining and stringent health checks on citizens.
Mainland China and Macao will be the next probable members to join in this first regional bubble.
Asia-pacific travel bubble
Australia and New Zealand both have incredibly low contractions due to adequate measures taken on a proper time. They formed a mutual pact of bubble travel for their citizens without extra hassles.
India-other countries bubble
India is negotiating separately with 13 countries to form a Bilateral Travel Bubble to resume a safe air journey after almost a year of shut down. It is in talks with Afghanistan, Bahrain, Bhutan, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Oman, Qatar, Ukraine, UAE, UK, and the United States of America.
winners and losers
While the advent of this breakthrough journey towards air travel resumption brings hopes, it exacerbates the mood of already battered Premium airlines whose business is only the international flights. They are anxious this policy will further strangle their already dwindling business since early 2020.
Here is how their future is most likely to be;
Impact on lordly Gulf Carriers
There are intentions to limit international airlines’ access to carry passengers freely into the realm of domestic carriers. A move, if implemented by authorities, will make a dent in the share of big and rich lordly airlines of Arabian Gulf.
Multi-billions dollar spent on airports in rich gulf Arab countries like Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Doha offered the ease of passenger transfers between the continents.Their business models are based entirely on their ability to serve international markets via Hub and Spoke system of connections.
The superjumbo Airbus 380 with a seating capacity of almost 800 had the edge over conventional aeroplanes for transporting the bulk of passengers to home airports for onward worldwide connections through these state-of-the-art facilities. An idea that worked well in pre corona era, in the post-pandemic air travel scenario, those billions of dollars seem to be going down the drains. Future of aviation, even after the abatement of covid-19, will be much different in terms of airlines’ capacity, accessibility, onboard amenities, and luxuries that were once a major attraction for business travellers and wealthy class.
Qatar Airways CEO expressed his apprehensions on this proposal:
“Such developments are of particular concerns for Qatar airways, which has a business model based on its ability to serve markets across the world via connections at its Hamad International airport’s Hub and Spoke system.”
Renaissance of domestic legacy airlines
Travel bubble brings excellent hopes for beleaguered national carriers like British Airways, Cathay Pacific, PIA, Air India. Since the post-corona world is much different than pre-corona air travel, for a few years, air travel will only be for necessity, instead of luxury and holidaying. It will make the luxurious first-class suites and high-end business-class redundant due to humongous price tags. Travelling will not be a luxury or holidaying, but only the necessity for coming few years. National carriers, with their low-end cabin ambience, economic inflight amenities including meals and entertainments, will be in demand once again. Hence the prospects of recovery will depend upon whether those countries strictly adopt the proposed agreements to support the home carriers to transport passenger.
Baby steps, but significant gains
Travel bubble idea, still in the nascent stages, has given some hopes of recovery for the aviation industry struggling for survival. Although the implementation will be extremely cautious given the dangers of COVID-19 but joining hands to find the most practical and safe solution to stagnant industry these small but scrupulously taken measures are a step forward towards a slow but viable recovery.
Though not yet tested, as this idea takes shape in coming months more and more countries will be joining this bubble. It will play a significant role in the restoration of the consumers’ confidence.
Coming weeks and months are highly important when the expansion of this bubble will demonstrate the concrete measures taken by member states to help flatten the curve. Achievement in this very first step will be conducive to the REBIRTH of international flights and reconnection of the borders after an unprecedented, long disconnect.
The author Rafiq Jan is an experienced Aviation analyst, current affairs blogger and a freelance writer.
