Penn on the World after COVID-19 You’re Grounded: The Aviation Industry in the World after COVID-19

Penn on the World after COVID-19 is a joint project of Penn Global and Perry World House. We've asked some of Penn's leading faculty, fellows, and scholars to imagine what the global pandemic will leave in its wake.

Megan S. Ryerson is the UPS Chair of Transportation and an Associate Professor of City and Regional Planning and Electrical and Systems Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania. 

Last fall, I warned in a Penn program that “It’s Time to Stop Flying” to help reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. Little did I know that within a few months, people would do just that but for a very different reason: COVID-19. With flights between the United States and Europe halted and 95% of Americans under stay-at-home orders, people have stopped flying. By March 14, passenger numbers screened by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) were down by 35% compared to the previous year. A month later, the decline was even more dramatic: the number screened was down 96% from a year earlier.

It's hard to over-state how big a change this portends for the airline industry. The previous 10 years have been marked by massive growth in the aviation sector, both domestically and internationally. International services proliferated due to Open Skies policies, looser regulations on joint ventures between international and U.S. airlines, and emerging markets, particularly in China and the Middle East, putting resources behind growing their aviation systems. But steep growth rates hid deep and systemic problems, including excessive delays and the industry’s growing contribution to climate change. As the aviation sector looks to the world after COVID-19, these challenges will continue to cloud its future.

Commercial aviation is currently on life support. Every flight needs to be approximately 70% full just to break even; with every near-empty flight, the airlines are losing massive amounts of money with every flight they fly. Yet despite passenger demand being a shadow of its recent self, the airlines do continue to fly. While international departures are down 82% compared to 2019, domestic departures are only halved. These flights are being operated as a condition of airlines receiving federal stimulus support through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security, or CARES, Act. The CARES Act requires any airlines that receives aid to continue flying to every domestic destination they served prior to March 1, 2020. The act will also provide funding to airports to continue their capital programs.

While these provisions are intended to keep America’s commercial aviation system more or less intact, they raise tactical questions about the future of aviation and strategic questions about our societal values and goals.

A fundamental question is, will passenger demand will come back any time soon? The economic pain most companies are suffering seems sure to dent business travel – especially as employees have become so familiar with teleconferencing. On the leisure front, Disney World is shuttered and sporting events are cancelled. Overall, until people can see with their own eyes that public health can be ensured for air travel – much like the traveling public needed to see that public safety could be assured after 9/11 – air travel will remain a shadow of its former self. At the same time, the collapse in air travel is bad news for big employers like plane maker Boeing. In 2018, Boeing channeled nearly $45 billion to more than 12,000 businesses, supporting an additional 1.3 million supplier-related jobs. The connectivity between the aviation industry and our overall economy is pushing us in a downward spiral.

But considering the future of aviation as solely the re-growth of the industry robs us of the opportunity – and the realism – or using this moment to rethink mobility. Is domestic air service connectivity so critical that we are willing to subsidize empty flights which cause considerable harm to the environment (in terms of excess fuel consumed) our risk our public health (airline and airport staff being infected)? The sharply increased role of the federal government following passage of the CARES Act reminds me of a time prior to 1978 when aviation was a heavily regulated industry: routes were chosen and allocated to airlines by the precursor to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Once the airlines became deregulated, their profit focus kept them dedicated to the bottom line not on providing mobility for a changing society. But do we need all this mobility and at what cost?

As policymakers consider the future of aviation, it’s time to rethink aviation in service of passenger mobility and connectivity with a sharpened focus on environmental sustainability and public health.

The views expressed in Penn on the World after COVID-19 posts are solely the author’s and not those of Penn, Penn Global or Perry World House.