Airlines’ recovery strategies have to align demand and booking activity with capacity, says John Grant, UK based director of Midas Aviation.

Grant says that the industry appears to have ‘reached the bottom’ but adding back capacity is going to be challenging for all airlines.

The aviation and general travel industry has to rebuild traveller confidence and put an end to stories that have little basis but get plenty of air time, according to UK based John Grant of Midas Aviation.

‘There is so much hysteria about the middle seat and we need to squash this. The seat is 17 inches (43cms) wide in most cases and whether it is empty or not fully defeats the whole argument for social distancing.

Had aviation started to grow too quickly to be sustainable and was it an industry pre-Covid that needed a reset?

These were questions asked by UK-based director of Midas Aviation, John Grant, a presenter in the International Tourism Expert Recovery webinar series this week.

Airlines are sitting in ‘pause’ mode and at this time virtually all of the carriers previously servicing this market have indicated they are keen to be back when practically possible, participants in the Tourism Temperature webinar this week heard.

Justin Tighe-Umbers, executive director, Board of Airline Representatives NZ (BARNZ) says flights are ‘sitting in the international slot coordination schedule’ but carriers are waiting to see how border restrictions and other plans develop.