Pre-flight testing is needed to avoid airlines’ oblivion – BA boss
NEWLY-appointed British Airways chief executive Sean Doyle has warned that there’s a risk the airline industry “will not see beyond” the Covid crisis unless it can address the issue of how to get people flying again.
Mr Doyle, who was previously the CEO at Aer Lingus, made the comments in an address to an event hosted by aviation news website FlightGlobal yesterday.
“My absolute priority is to ensure our resurgence from the worst crisis in the industry’s history,” said Mr Doyle of his new role at British Airways.
British Airways is part of IAG, which also owns Aer Lingus, Iberia, Vueling and Level.
“We are doing everything in our power to emerge from this crisis, but the impact has been profound,” said Mr Doyle.
He pointed out that in the first quarter of 2009, during the financial crisis,British Airways lost £309m (€341m).
“In quarter two this year, we reported a loss of £711m,” he said. “That was at the very start of the crisis. It’s now October and we know this is not a short-term issue.
“The huge reduction in travel, and especially business travel, has forced us to restructure our business, see jobs lost, we’ve sold assets, and we said goodbye to our 747 fleet,” said Mr Doyle.
He said the health risk from flying is “low” and insisted that pre-flight Covid testing is essential.
“IATA (the International Air Transport Association) suggests that since the start of 2020, there have been as few as 44 cases of Covid-19 linked to flights,” said Mr Doyle. “Over the same period, some 1.2 billion people travelled.
‘Path to recovery is a very long one, at least five years’
This figure amounts to one case for every 27 million travellers.”
He said that that “vast majority” of those cases occurred before the wearing of face coverings in flight became widespread.
“Our position at British Airways is that we do not believe quarantine is a solution”, said the new BA boss.
“We believe the best way to reassure people is to introduce a reliable and affordable test before flying,” he added.
“Pre-flight testing lets our customers know the risk of travelling in close proximity to someone who is infected is low and governments can be confident they are not importing the disease,” said Mr Doyle.
“I need to be clear,” warned the airline CEO. “There is a risk that as an industry, we will not see beyond this crisis if we do not first address the issue of how we get people flying again.”
British Airways has traditionally been the most profitable arm of IAG. Last year, it accounted for €13.3bn of IAG’s total €22.4bn in passenger revenue. It generated €2.1bn of the group’s €3.2bn pre-exceptional operating profit.
Simon McNamara, IATA’s UK and Ireland country manager, told the conference that people’s travelling habits will change.
“We hope it will come back to what it was, but there will be that short-term change,” he said. “The path to recovery, particularly on long-haul travel, is a very, very long one – at least five years.”
He said the UK government and the EU need to ensure that there are contingency plans in place to ensure that airlines don’t “face a cliff edge” when the UK’s Brexit transition period ends in December.