As the vaccines to battle the coronavirus began being distributed late last year, this provided travellers the confidence to start booking flights and preparing for vacation.
However, the pandemic isnt nearly over yet. Although the vaccine allows travellers to not catch the virus themselves, it has not proven to prevent the spreading of the coronavirus, as well as help in any way with the new more-infectious strains that have caused countries like Australia and the UK to close borders once again. Due to inability to predict when the pandemic would completely come to an end, A statement was released by the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) to emphasise that new travel regulations that should replace quarantine in response to preventing the spread of COVID-19. This was due to the negative effects mandatory quarantine was contributing to the travel industry.
Numerous airlines have also experienced losses the previous year, along with hundreds of thousands of pilots, flight crew and airport workers already being out of work for close to a year.
Margaret Harris, a WHO spokesperson in Geneva said, “It’s very important for people to understand that at the moment, all we know about the vaccines is that they will very effectively reduce your risk of severe disease. We haven’t seen any evidence yet indicating whether or not they stop transmission.”
American Airlines Group Inc warned 13,000 employees could be laid off, many of them for the second time in six months. “At the end of 2020, we fully believed that we would be looking at a summer schedule where we’d fly all of our airplanes and need the full strength of our team,” Chief Executive Officer Doug Parker and President Robert Isom told workers. “Regrettably, that is no longer the case.”
The lack of progress is clear in the skies. Commercial flights worldwide as of Feb. 1 wallowed at less than half pre-pandemic levels, according to OAG Aviation Worldwide Ltd. Scheduled services in major markets including the U.K., Brazil, Spain are still falling, the data show.
Photo Credit: Maldives magazine
