And the knock-on effects will be no more international sport or touring musicians (rock, classical and everything in between). Do you want that too?

It would not trouble me in the least if air travel were consigned to private hire and escape days as the day trips to Colwyn Bay or Southend on the trains once enticed people. I have flown more than I care to remember and that includes the memorable year of 2011 when I took 67 flights which placed me in parts of the world as distant from each other as Rio, India (twice), Korea and Vancouver. It took me three months to unscramble my body clock. What a different world from my first step on an airplane in 1962 when the Class was allowed to go to O’Hare and board a Delta 707 to see what a plane was like. What a difference a first class flight to Beijing is to the first transatlantic flight on a BOAC 707 with stops for fuel in Cork and Boston en route to Chicago.
But having a world where looking after the environment in a simple way (using Zoom Meetings) can have a very positive effect on both the best use of time and the reduction in the use of fuel and having used Zoom more and more during these past weeks, I honestly wouldn’t mind if I never saw the inside of an aircraft again. I am old enough to have made multiple transatlantic crossings by boat. Cunard and the Empress Liners of Canadian Pacific, and sailed across on a Schooner in the heady days of the 1970s. Travel by boat, unless one is emigrating (I did) is too difficult these days but perhaps a return to ocean voyaging would be fun.
I have no belief that air travel will cease. It will become less frequent, more expensive and more inconvenient as various States implement the global control methods of the 21st Century biological equivalent of the Orwellian Panopticon. Some airlines simply deserve to be eliminated. Perhaps the Government, always keen to “help” will consider issuing travel permits. After all that is how Passports came about and look what fun they cause as we have now retinal scans to ensure the safety of our “keeprs”.
So let airlines die and air travel move into the past as has the Victorian practice of murdering and stuffing every living creature as they held the belief that nature would never “run out” of itself.

Having flown to the Channel Islands once, Canada to visit friends once and Italy for a holiday once, at the age of 60 I was looking forward to a few more flights, if it doesn’t happen I can live with it, but for many younger people who’ve flown more for holidays it’s going to harder.

Similarly for Academics for whom the conference season is a chance to fly to exotic places, share their genetic information and add on a few days of cheap holiday as the airfare’s already paid for, they are going to find it very hard… What a shame.

The aviation industry will survive. It already had over capacity which is why airlines were going bust before Covid. Yes it is going to take a battering and take 2 or more years to recover and probably won’t get back to where it was for a decade, but it will survive. Once the loss leaders to tempt us back are withdrawn air travel will probably be more expensive than it was. The industry related to the airline industry which is in real trouble are the aircraft manufacturers – there will be lots of perfectly good planes mothballed for a good while – who really needs to buy new passenger planes in the next 5-10 years? Aircraft manufacturing is not something you can just mothball then turn back on again quickly.

The section of tourism industry that will be hardest hit will be the cruise industry. It too will survive, but at a greatly reduced level and will take much longer to recover. Again it will be the ship builders who may take a fatal blow.

Looking at the sky and the noticeable lack of con trails, I am also struck by how good the weather is. After 911 meteorologists observed a sudden change in temperatures. We are clearly seeing something of the same. Of course it is a double edged sword. Air travel uses huge amounts of carbon fuel that adds to warming yet also creates high level clouds that cool the atmosphere.

Then there is the effect on culture. Lets face it, a four star hotel is much the same all across the world these days. The only difference is the landscape outside.

International travel has homogenised once separate cultures into one amorphous blancmange of sameness. Travel to China to visit the Forbidden City and eat at a Mac Donalds. All you come home with is a photograph and possibly some exotic virus to spread.

I will not miss it if it becomes very much constrained.

After the lockdown, the bailouts. Crisis-hit industries already have their begging bowls out ” and governments are frantically working out how much to give them and what to ask for in return.
if you’re going to bail you should take a permanent equity stick not a controlling stake this is no nationalisation

If we need to save these companies because they are worthy companies , if we are going to provide the safety net’ the government should get the upside on the way out.

So if we are going to take 1/3 of the shares of let’s say American Airlines, we should put them into equivalent of a sovereign wealth fund, no political control, passive manager, give them the liquidity that they need and then when they start flying again guess what.

Those shares go up in value and that dividend can go to the whole public who after all we are the ones who were bailing them out!

It would not trouble me in the least if air travel were consigned to private hire and escape days as the day trips to Colwyn Bay or Southend on the trains once enticed people. I have flown more than I care to remember and that includes the memorable year of 2011 when I took 67 flights which placed me in parts of the world as distant from each other as Rio, India (twice), Korea and Vancouver. It took me three months to unscramble my body clock. What a different world from my first step on an airplane in 1962 when the Class was allowed to go to O’Hare and board a Delta 707 to see what a plane was like. What a difference a first class flight to Beijing is to the first transatlantic flight on a BOAC 707 with stops for fuel in Cork and Boston en route to Chicago.
But having a world where looking after the environment in a simple way (using Zoom Meetings) can have a very positive effect on both the best use of time and the reduction in the use of fuel and having used Zoom more and more during these past weeks, I honestly wouldn’t mind if I never saw the inside of an aircraft again. I am old enough to have made multiple transatlantic crossings by boat. Cunard and the Empress Liners of Canadian Pacific, and sailed across on a Schooner in the heady days of the 1970s. Travel by boat, unless one is emigrating (I did) is too difficult these days but perhaps a return to ocean voyaging would be fun.

I have no belief that air travel will cease. It will however become less frequent, more expensive and more inconvenient as various States implement the global control methods of the 21st Century biological equivalent of the Orwellian Panopticon. Some airlines are so appalling they simply deserve to be eliminated. Perhaps the Government, always keen to “help”, will consider issuing travel permits. After all that is how Passports came about after a similar global disruption known as The War to End Wars, and look what fun they cause as we have now retinal scans to ensure the safety of our “keepers”.

So let airlines die and air travel move into the past as has the Victorian practice of murdering and stuffing every living creature as they held the belief that nature could never “run out” of itself.

All very well, but how on earth are all those musicians, Hollywood actors and politicians going to get about the globe in order to warn everyone about climate change?