The In­ter­na­tion­al Air Trans­port As­so­ci­a­tion (IA­TA) has is­sued an ur­gent call to gov­ern­ments in Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean to take spe­cif­ic mea­sures to help the avi­a­tion sec­tor sur­vive its worst cri­sis ever.

In an of­fi­cial state­ment is­sued to­day, IA­TA notes that bor­der clo­sures and trav­el re­stric­tions have se­vere­ly im­pact­ed avi­a­tion for more than three months. 

Ac­cord­ing to IA­TA, with COVID-19 still very much present in the re­gion, a restart of the in­dus­try in many coun­tries seems months away.

IA­TA Re­gion­al Vice Pres­i­dent for the Amer­i­c­as, Pe­ter Cerdá, says the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion is un­sus­tain­able and risks the col­lapse of the en­tire sec­tor.

"This is our last chance to sur­vive this cri­sis,” he warns. “Time is against us and every day that goes by places more agony on an in­dus­try that is seek­ing clar­i­ty on time­lines to restart op­er­a­tions. No sec­tor has the liq­uid­i­ty to stay afloat dur­ing a four- or five-month stand­still. We rec­og­nize the ef­forts made by the au­thor­i­ties in fight­ing this pan­dem­ic and we un­der­stand what coun­tries are fac­ing, but air trans­port is es­sen­tial for our re­gion and can­not be al­lowed to dis­ap­pear," he said.

Latin Amer­i­can and Caribbean gov­ern­ments re­main the least sup­port­ive of avi­a­tion, an in­dus­try that pri­or to COVID-19 con­tributed US$167 bil­lion to their GDP and sup­port­ed 7.2 mil­lion jobs through­out the re­gion. Fore­casts now show a drop of at least US$77 bil­lion in air trans­port’s con­tri­bu­tion to GDP, with more than 3.5 mil­lion jobs at risk.

"In coun­tries like Pana­ma, where air trans­port sus­tained near­ly a quar­ter of a mil­lion jobs and its main air­port of­fered con­nec­tions to near­ly 90 in­ter­na­tion­al des­ti­na­tions be­fore the pan­dem­ic, it is wor­ry­ing that the gov­ern­ment has so far failed to take any firm ac­tion to pro­vide tan­gi­ble sup­port to the in­dus­try. The same is true in Pe­ru, where fi­nan­cial re­lief is ur­gent­ly need­ed for an in­dus­try that is key to its pop­u­la­tion and its econ­o­my, and op­er­a­tions must be al­lowed to re­sume in Ju­ly," Cerdá said. 

IA­TA re­ports that pas­sen­ger traf­fic on Latin Amer­i­can and Caribbean air­lines dropped by a whop­ping 96% in April.  Even though Brazil, Chile and Mex­i­co saw lim­it­ed op­er­a­tions in April, they still showed traf­fic (RPK) re­duc­tions of more than 90%.  The in­ter­na­tion­al body warns that air con­nec­tiv­i­ty and its as­so­ci­at­ed so­cio-eco­nom­ic ben­e­fits across the re­gion are at risk. This has al­ready di­rect­ly im­pact­ed busi­ness­es—from fam­i­ly-run en­ter­pris­es to large cor­po­ra­tions—along the en­tire trav­el and tourism val­ue chain, as well as in­dus­tries re­ly­ing on air car­go for their im­ports and ex­ports.

The ex­pec­ta­tion is that dif­fer­ent coun­tries will even­tu­al­ly al­low the re­sump­tion of op­er­a­tions on dif­fer­ent dates. It is there­fore es­sen­tial that the ma­jor in­dus­try play­ers and gov­ern­ments work to­geth­er to fa­cil­i­tate the restart of air op­er­a­tions in a safe, ef­fi­cient and har­mo­nized man­ner.

"Colom­bia has tak­en on a con­struc­tive role in the re­gion since the be­gin­ning of the COVID-19 cri­sis by fa­cil­i­tat­ing tem­po­rary fi­nan­cial re­lief for the avi­a­tion in­dus­try and sup­port­ing biosafe­ty pro­to­cols that seek to pro­tect the health of pas­sen­gers and em­ploy­ees. For this rea­son, it is ex­treme­ly sur­pris­ing that a pi­lot plan for the re­sump­tion of com­mer­cial avi­a­tion has now been de­vised, where im­ple­men­ta­tion de­pends on the de­ci­sion of each mu­nic­i­pal­i­ty. We re­quest that the na­tion­al gov­ern­ment re­con­sid­er the re­open­ing of do­mes­tic flights as soon as pos­si­ble, ac­cord­ing to the pro­pos­al ini­tial­ly pre­sent­ed by Ae­ro­civ­il. The air sec­tor is ready to re­sume ac­tiv­i­ties by guar­an­tee­ing health and safe­ty in its op­er­a­tions and can­not wait an­oth­er month or two to fly again," Cerdá said.

He al­so in­sist­ed that as coun­tries lift trav­el re­stric­tions, mea­sures such as quar­an­tine are to be avoid­ed. Such re­stric­tions se­vere­ly ham­per eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty by ef­fec­tive­ly block­ing trav­el, which is es­sen­tial for the coun­ties of Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean that are heav­i­ly re­liant on tourism. For this rea­son, the gov­ern­ment of Ecuador should re­move its cur­rent quar­an­tine rule, which even ap­plies to pas­sen­gers who have test­ed neg­a­tive­ly for COVID-19.

Over­all, Latin Amer­i­can and Caribbean states are be­ing called on to im­ple­ment the In­ter­na­tion­al Civ­il Avi­a­tion Or­ga­ni­za­tion's (ICAO) glob­al guide­lines for the safe re­sump­tion of air trav­el. IA­TA ful­ly sup­ports the rec­om­men­da­tions con­tained in the ICAO Coun­cil's roadmap 'Take-off: a guide for air trav­el af­ter the COVID-19 pub­lic health cri­sis'. The doc­u­ment is the re­sult of ex­ten­sive ad­vi­so­ry work in col­lab­o­ra­tion with gov­ern­ments, the World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion and lead­ing avi­a­tion in­dus­try or­ga­ni­za­tions.

"Our in­dus­try is fac­ing its great­est chal­lenge to date: to restart avi­a­tion safe­ly, pro­tect­ing the health of pas­sen­gers and staff and en­sur­ing that avi­a­tion does not be­come a sig­nif­i­cant vec­tor for the spread of COVID-19. Our in­dus­try has over­come dif­fi­cult sit­u­a­tions in the past, like 9/11 or SARS. We need to work to­geth­er with gov­ern­ments to do so once again and re­gain pub­lic con­fi­dence," Cerdá con­clud­ed.