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2006). Air transport also increases person-to-person transmission risks
of respiratory pathogens as a result of high crowd densities in enclosed
spaces (Browne et al., 2016), i.e. airports and aircraft act as incubators
and nodes of disease distribution. This is of relevance because any
spread of disease, particularly at global scales, is associated with a cost
(e.g. Rosen et al., 2004) that includes prevention, research, treatment,
foregone business opportunities, and recession (e.g. Lee and McKibbin,
2004).
An associated risk is climate change, to which aviation makes a
significant contribution. Globally, emissions from aviation approached
one Gigaton (Gt) of carbon dioxide (CO2) per year before the pandemic
(IEA, 2019). The sector’s contribution to global warming is even
significantly higher due to changes in radiative forcing caused by
short-lived emissions at flight altitude (IPCC et al., 1999). Fahey and Lee
(2016) estimate that aviation contributes close to 5% of all forcing from
anthropogenic sources, i.e. significantly more than the warming from
CO2 alone (about 2.5%; IEA, 2019). With expectations of continued
growth and pre-COVID-19 industry projections that the global fleet of
aircraft will double between 2018 and 2040 (Boeing, 2019), the
importance of aviation as a contributor to climate change in an other
wise decarbonizing world will grow (Peeters et al., 2016).
Yet, even though these risks are well-documented, the general
response has been to either ignore (pathogen/disease) or downplay
(climate change) these challenges. Clearly, pathogen distribution is a
cost of transportation and should be part of cost-benefit analyses, spe
cifically as air industry lobby organizations regularly highlight “induced
benefits” of aviation (AviationBenefits, 2020). To date, no global as
sessments of the cost of aviation-related pathogen distribution have
been published. Climate change is another aspect that has essentially
been ignored over the period 1997 to 2016, i.e. the year of the adoption
of the Kyoto Protocol that assigned responsibility for reducing emissions
through ICAO in 1997 (UNFCCC, 2018) and the presentation of CORSIA,
the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation
(ICAO, 2016). CORSIA, as industry’s response to mitigation, has been
met with much critique because it ignores non-CO2 warming, sets a
baseline for annual CO2 emissions of about one Gt CO2 that it will not be
considered under the scheme, and because it focuses on cheap offsets
that imply their own risks, i.e. forest-based carbon sequestration in a
world more prone to wildfires (Larsson et al., 2019; Lyle, 2018; Maert
ens et al., 2019; Scheelhaase et al., 2018). As a consequence, the sector’s
contribution to global warming will also grow, as non-CO2 forcing in
creases (Lee and Sausen, 2000; Bock and Burkhardt, 2019).
The omission of these global risks is systemic, as no efforts are made
to economically reflect these in balance sheets or fares. Climate change
and pandemics thus represent market and policy failures in which the
risk of potentially very significant future disruptions of the socio-
economic system is imposed on society. Compounding this, very sig
nificant subsidies have been extended to aircraft manufacturers, infra
structure providers and airlines throughout the history of commercial
aviation (Doganis, 2005). Subsidies are economic interventions that
have taken the form of grants, equity infusions, loans and loan gua
rantees, reduced taxes or non-taxation (fuel, Value Added Tax, frequent
flier programs) (Gössling et al., 2017). There are also various forms of
hidden subsidies, such as reduced infrastructure fees, forms of
cross-subsidization or monopoly rights. Together with deregulation and
productivity gains, these subsidies have contributed to capacity growth
(ibid.), which in turn has led to a 60% decline in the price of air transport
over the past 20 years (IATA, 2019c). Yet, profitability in the sector has
been low: over the past 30 years, airlines reported operative losses in 12
years (IATA, 2009, 2017, 2019a). Even in the most profitable year in
recent history, 2015, the net profit per departing passenger was just
slightly above US$10, and less than the operative loss in the least
profitable year, 2008, at US$ − 10.5 per passenger (IATA, 2009). These
figures illustrate that on balance, and considering the role of subsidies
and State aid in crisis periods, it is questionable whether commercial
aviation generates positive net results.
The understanding of risks imposed by aviation on individuals (in
terms of health and wellbeing) or society (in terms of climate change or
the economic cost of pandemics) is equally ignored by air travelers, the
aviation industry, politicians, health insurers. Notably, health concerns
raised during the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic have been
rapidly been replaced by a narrative of economic necessity to re-start
travel and tourism.
3. Is there an aviation overcapacity?
There is much evidence that the decline in the real cost of air
transport has had a wide range of negative side effects, including eco
nomic vulnerabilities (Gössling et al., 2017). The low price of air
transport induces traffic and changes the structure of global transport
flows. For example, the share of international tourists arriving by air
increased from less than 44% in 1998 to 58% in 2019 (UNWTO, 2000;
2020), while the number of air passengers almost tripled in this period,
from 1.5 billion (1998) to 4.2 billion (2018) (The World Bank, 2020).
Yet, while air industry advocates have sought to spread an under
standing that air travel is a global norm, recent research has determined
that flight activity is highly skewed, as only a few percent of the world
population fly internationally in a given year (Peeters et al., 2007).
North America stands out as the region that has the greatest demand for
air transport. The estimate is that annual per capita transport demand in
North America is about 50 times higher than in Africa, eight times
higher than in the Asia-Pacific, and twice as high as in Europe (IATA,
2019a). These values denote regional averages; national distributions in
demand are even more skewed. For instance, in the USA, 12% of the
population are estimated to take 68% of all flights (ICCT, 2019). As
Banister (2018) notes, cheaper air transport does not empower more
people to fly, rather than to entice the same travelers to fly more. This
has implications for climate change. Very frequent fliers, who may fly
hundreds of thousands of kilometers per year, often in private aircraft,
can emit thousands of tons of CO2 per year. In the most extreme cases,
their air travel may contribute ten thousand times more to global
warming than the overall consumption of a person living in poorer na
tions (Gössling, 2019).
This raises the question of how much air transport is really needed.
Growing evidence suggests that air transport ‘wants’ are weakly corre
lated with ‘needs’. For example, students assign very different values to
individual flights, rating a significant share as having “limited” or “no
importance at all” (Gössling et al., 2019). The issue is perhaps even
better illustrated by the ‘flourishing’ and ‘floundering’ business traveler
types identified by Hanna et al. (2018). Floundering air travelers would
like to fly less, yet consider themselves forced to constantly travel. In
contrast, air travel is related to identity, lifestyle and career advance
ment for the “flourishing” flyer type, which also explains the propensity
for mileage runs among certain travelers (Gössling and Nilsson, 2011).
Equally important are energy intensities. The World Bank (2013) esti
mates that the carbon footprint of a premium class flight is three times
(business) and nine times (first class) larger than a flight in economy
class. This illustrates interrelationships and dilemmas of energy use and
emissions, transport demand, and the distribution of risks and their cost.
Ignoring these issues, the industry response has been to demand State
aid and a return to business-as-usual, not even considering alternative
business models. For instance, a business model focused on profitability
rather than revenue could eliminate much air travel and yet increase the
sector’s profit margins. In a situation of reduced supply, limited, for
instance, by the amount of carbon the sector is allowed to emit, growing
demand should significantly increase willingness to pay for transport
services.
4. A return to risk and vulnerability?
As the preceding sections highlight, there is reason to critically
discuss the development of the global air transport system. Crises of the
S. Gössling
3. Journal of Air Transport Management 89 (2020) 101933
3
past, including the global financial crisis in 2008, have shown that there
is a potential for quick rebounds. IATA (2020) expects that the recovery
after COVID-19 will take longer, but a return to business-as-usual is
expected nevertheless. Is this desirable from an integrated
socio-environmental-economic viewpoint? The evidence is that a)
aviation is responsible for very significant negative externalities
imposed on society; b) demand is to a considerable degree induced, on
the basis of very low fares; and c) the air transport system continues to
focus on volume-growth strategies with small profit margins. The future
vulnerabilities this implies should be obvious.
As consultants to industry and governments affirm (McKinsey &
Company, 2020), COVID-19 has many similarities to climate change:
The risk of global warming is systemic, nonstationary, nonlinear,
requiring a focus on longer-term resilience, and characterized by market
failure. It may be added that in contrast to COVID-19, climate change
risks accumulate over time, are permanent, and will be very disruptive
and irreversible when reaching tipping points (IPCC, 2018; Lenton et al.,
2019). Contrary to COVID-19, climate change risks are well described in
recurrent documentations, the IPCC reports, available since the 1990s.
There is also a principal global consensus, the Paris Agreement on
decarbonization, as a common goal for humanity (UNFCCC, 2019).
Against this background, it is of interest to consider the implications
of plans to extend State aid to the air transport value chain. Aircraft
manufacturers, airlines and airports have already received considerable
and often unconditional support. The Airline Bailout Tracker published
by T&E, Greenpeace and Carbon Market Watch (2020) suggests that in
Europe, agreed bailouts now total €12.9 billion, with another €17.1
billion under discussion. In the USA, US$25 billion in loans and US$25
billion in grants have been made available to passenger airlines; US$8
billion to cargo carriers; and US$3 billion to airport contractors (Reu
ters, 2020a). Up to US$13 billion are accessible by Singapore Airlines
(Reuters, 2020b). At the end of May 2020, the total volume of State aid
may have exceeded US$100 billion, i.e. almost half of what global air
lines reported as their net result over nine years, i.e. for the entire period
2010–2018 (US$196.9 billion; IEA, 2019). In other words, State aid now
extended to airlines to ensure their survival is equivalent to the profits
that may be made over many years, notably in the absence of further
disruptions, and without considering the cost of negative externalities.
5. Thinking the unthinkable
As proposed by Banister and Hickman (2013), it is important to
“think the unthinkable”, i.e. to consider longer-term transportation
scenarios that embrace possibility, plausibility and desirability. It may
be argued that air transport futures have been discussed mostly in terms
of “possibility”, and less in terms of plausibility or desirability. “Possi
bilities” are framed economically, and by a limited number of actors, the
proponents of volume growth. There is a notable absence of any dis
cussion of alternative pathways. Yet, most stakeholders in industry and
policymakers would agree that it is desirable for aviation to become
more resilient financially and more sustainable climatically. It would
seem that for this to happen, very radical changes are necessary in terms
of measuring economic performance, the progress and potential of
technology change, and the limits to sustainable transitions implied by a
rapidly growing transport system (Gössling and Higham, 2020).
In conclusion, this discussion has revealed unsurmountable conflicts
inherent in the proposition of continued volume growth and a reduction
in risks and vulnerabilities. Hence, a reorientation is necessary that in
cludes the possibility of a shrinking of the global air transport system to
increase its desirability for society. It is also plausible. COVID-19 has
forced many airlines to reduce their fleets, retire old aircraft, or stop
serving long-haul destinations. Airlines have gone bankrupt (Flybee,
South African Airways, Eurowings), or entered Voluntary Administra
tion (Air Mauritius, Virgin Australia) (TTRWeekly, 2020). As a result, air
transport capacity is diminished. Further reductions in capacity may be
achieved by reducing subsidies. This should affect low-cost carriers such
as Ryanair, an airline sometimes offering transport at a price below the
cost of fuel, while counting among the European Union’s top 10
greenhouse gas emitters (The Guardian, 2019).
A scenario for a resilient aviation system should have a starting point
in the question of how much air transport is needed; here, the COVID-19
pandemic leaves much room for critical reflection. A desirable aviation
system is also one where risks are accounted for, and where their cost is
part of the price paid for air travel. In a situation of reduced supply, there
should be an opportunity for airlines to increase profitability. COVID-19
thus offers an opportunity to rethink global air transport. Many ques
tions, such as those addressing volume growth, the sector’s reliance on
State aid, its unresolved environmental impacts, and hence the basic
assumptions on which aviation operates, will be difficult to ask. How
ever, risks and vulnerabilities have to be weighed against short-term
benefits, if the sector’s future resilience is to improve. If there is one
lesson to be learned from the COVID-19 crisis, it is the demonstration
that nation states can take radical structural actions to deal with
emergencies.
Author statement
The idea for this opinion piece was developed by the author, who
also wrote the entire text.
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