It feels like this time is different because of the ongoing lack of demand. International flights from the US are looking to basically be nonexistent until there's a vaccine. After that, it's very plausible the business travel economy won't ever recover fully.
I agree that some of the more foresighted countries are making some of the right moves (though Saudi Arabia is probably kicking itself for not moving forward with the Aramco IPO last year), but I really wonder what the effects will be on the political stability of places like Iran and Iraq - they're not in great shape to start with, and this kind of economic shock seems like about the worst possible thing to really exacerbate all the problems that exist already.
> International flights from the US are looking to basically be nonexistent until there's a vaccine.
But there's likely going to be a vaccine in less than a year. It will take several years to know to what extent it's really safe or effective, but people who travel a lot for business can get it right away if they want.
"Likely" based on what? And does an unsafe vaccine (whatever that could be) really qualify as a vaccine? What would make it something a person who travels a lot for business would want to risk?
Likely based on the fact that they're already in mass production, so as long as they don't seem to be immediately killing people they're going to get released even without longterm data.
And someone who would travel for business if there were a vaccine at least has a reason to be an early adopter of the vaccine, whereas for someone who never leaves their house anyway it would make more sense just to wait for other people to find out whether it's safe and effective or not.
I agree that some of the more foresighted countries are making some of the right moves (though Saudi Arabia is probably kicking itself for not moving forward with the Aramco IPO last year), but I really wonder what the effects will be on the political stability of places like Iran and Iraq - they're not in great shape to start with, and this kind of economic shock seems like about the worst possible thing to really exacerbate all the problems that exist already.