Published 14:43 IST, May 14th 2020
'14-day quarantine' will inhibit flyers even if global aviation resumes: IATA survey
International Air Transport Association (IATA) urged governments to find alternative arrangements to implementing quarantine measures for arriving passengers
Even as the deadly COVID-19 pandemic continues to reign and economies across the world are resuming operations after the lockdown phase while co-existing with the virus, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) has urged the governments to find alternative arrangements to implementing quarantine measures for arriving passengers.
The survey conducted by the international aviation body in April showed that 86 percent of travellers were concerned about being quarantined while travelling and 69 percent of recent travellers were of the opinion that they will not consider travelling if it involved a 14-day quarantine period.
"Major stimulus from governments combined with liquidity injections by central banks will boost the economic recovery once the pandemic is under control. But rebuilding passenger confidence will take longer," said IATA's Director General and CEO Alexandre de Juniac.
"And even then, individual and corporate travellers are likely to carefully manage travel spend and stay closer to home," he said in a statement.
Due to the impact of COVID-19 pandemic, international travel which requires longer hours of journey and halts will be much affected than domestic travel. This makes globally agreed and implemented biosecurity standards for the travel process all the more critical.
"We have a small window to avoid the consequences of uncoordinated unilateral measures that marked the post-9/11 period. We must act fast," said de Juniac.
"Even in the best of circumstances this crisis will cost many jobs and rob the economy of years of aviation-stimulated growth. To protect aviation's ability to be a catalyst for the economic recovery, we must not make that prognosis worse by making travel impracticable with quarantine measures," he added.
"We need a solution for safe travel that addresses two challenges. It must give passengers the confidence to travel safely and without undue hassle. And it must give governments confidence that they are protected from importing the virus," said de Juniac adding, "Our proposal is for a layering of temporary non-quarantine measures until we have a vaccine, immunity passports or nearly instant COVID-19 testing available at scale."
(With ANI inputs)
Updated 14:43 IST, May 14th 2020