Essay Example on Pandemic or Epidemic: The World's Major Disease Issues

Introduction

Throughout history, the world has been facing various issues. One of the major issues that the world has faced for many several years is the rise of diseases. There have been many diseases that have kept on rising at different times. The presence of these diseases in the world became a major issue of concern since they posed a great risk to the life of many people. These diseases can be classified as either pandemic or epidemic. In this case, pandemic refers to the condition that has spread to the whole world, while the epidemic is a condition facing a country or a small geographical region. Some of the diseases occurred, and when people contracted, their condition would worsen, and they would lose their lives. This critical issue prompted the development of health care services. Health care services have played an important role in providing a remedy for this disease. Medicines have been developed to treat most diseases and ensure that the infected people returned to their normal life. However, some diseases do not have a cure, and this case has called for medical professionals to devise measures to prevent human beings from contracting these diseases. Even though proper medical practices have been put in place, they have not been effective in fighting these diseases. These loopholes have constantly left human beings at risk of getting certain diseases. An example of this issue is the recent situation that the world is currently facing. The world is currently undergoing a tough situation due to the rise of the Corona virus (COVID - 19). COVID - 19 is a new infectious disease that is caused by the Coronavirus that has been recently discovered. Since the disease is highly infectious, it has managed to spread throughout the world from its place of origin, Hubei Province, Wuhan, China. Several strategies have been developed to deal with the highly infectious COVID-19, and one of them is the stay at home or lockdown measures. The presence of this disease has led to stalling or deterioration of various activities. One of the major activities that have been affected by the onset of Coronavirus is transport, as many people are not traveling from one place to another in large numbers. The main form of transport that has been affected is air transport. Therefore, this paper seeks to analyze the impact of COVID -19 pandemic on the Airline Industry and Recovery Strategies.

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Current State of the Airline Industry

The current state of the airline industry is very unfortunate. Many countries in the world have been affected with rising of the corona virus. The current number of the countries where Coved - 19 has reached is current at 210 (Chinazzin et al., 2020). Due to the high number of countries that have been affected, every government has taken a measure to protect itself from the diseases. One of the major methods that governments have undertaken is banning flights to and from other countries. The main reason for governments banning flights to and from other countries is to prevent people who could be possibly infected by the virus from entering their nations. In this case, countries are now working hard to manage the transmission of infection locally.

Due to restrictions on traveling between various countries, the airline industry has been seriously affected. The airline industry is the most common mode of transport that is used to move from one country to another. Since no people are traveling to different destinations, the current state of the airline industry is that most airlines have been forced to ground their operations as they assess the situation since most of the income of airline companies come from passengers. Most of the airlines are currently on a state of uncertainty on whether they will recover fully and how long it will take once the pandemic is over. Therefore, as the disease rages on, and most airlines have grounded their airplanes, a lot of focus is not being put on the recovery strategies that will help resume normal operations effectively.

However, not all has been lost since there are few airlines whose airplanes are still operating (Chinazzin et al., 2020). Most of the airlines that are currently on operation are the ones carrying various types of cargo. The amount of money that these cargo planes are charging has gone up in the past few days. Also, certain airlines still carry passengers, but most of the flights are domestics. These airlines are supposed to observe social distancing, and this means that it will reduce its capacity by 50% to reduce human contact and the transmission of diseases, and this means that airlines are most likely going to experience a reduction in the revenue.

Impact of COVID-19 on the Airline Industry

The airline industry has been affected much by the presence of COVID - 19. Several airlines have displayed their outcry on the challenges that they are currently going through since their operations are not as usual. Therefore, some of the major impacts that most airline companies have expression have been explained in details below;

Canceling of Flights and Refunding Customers

According to Chinazzin et al., (2020), the unprecedented rise spread of Coronavirus has led to the most airlines canceling their flight and refunding their customers. As many countries were taking measures to contain the spread of the virus, most airlines were still operating as usual, and many people had booked flights to various places.

However, most of the countries had to announce restrictions that would prevent movement in and out of the country. Most airlines were caught unawares, and they were left with no option but to cancel all the booked flight. The headache that followed the canceling of flights was to refund customers their money. However, not all flight refunded their customers their money, some of them have promised that the pandemic has been contained and normal operation has resumed, their tickets will be made value, and they can fly to their destinations.

Reduced Revenue

Most airline industries rely on passengers to acquire the revenue that is needed to run major activities within the industry. The onset of the Corona Virus has come with a huge impact since it has caused many countries to close down their boundaries, and this includes banning flights. In this case, the airplane cannot be used to move people from one place to another. Therefore, most of them have been ground at various airports. Since the main source of income for the airline industry is passenger airplanes.

Since there are no people traveling from one place to another, the revenue that these airlines earn has greatly gone down. The International Air Transport Authority projected that the total loss that the airline industry could lose due to Coronavirus and restrictions on travel is between $ 63 and $ 113 billion (Craven et al., 2020). Some of the airlines have been forced to rely on cargo to gain some revenue. However, this is not enough since there are a limited amount of cargo that these airplanes can carry.

For example, the demand for various goods has gone down in the wake of Coronavirus. Therefore, the only goods that most airlines can afford to carry are the essential entities such as the medical equipment who demand had risen in the past few days. The presence of COVID 19 has led to the increased cost of transporting cargo, but the revenue earned from cargo transport may not be enough to keep the airline industry going. In another scenario, not all the airline has stopped their operations. There are few airlines that are still transporting few passengers. Such airplanes need to embrace social distancing to curb the spread of the novel Coronavirus.

Carrying a few passengers is a huge loss to the airline industry since the amount of revenue that will be attained will be low and this may not be effective in running a whole airline industry and this issue means that most of these airlines will started experiencing huge losses. Moreover, there are some airlines that have already gone bankrupt and this has made them have a difficult time thus they cannot undertake any operation at all.

Loss of Jobs for the Airline Workers

Many people working in the airline industry have lost their jobs either temporarily or permanently since the spread of Coronavirus began. In the airline industry, there are various workers that put in work to ensure that all the activities are done effectively. The spread of Coronavirus has posed a major challenge since most airlines have been grounded. Since the airlines have been grounded, there has been less work that needs to be done (Wells, Sah & Moghadas, 2020).

For example, all the flight attendants have been forced to stop working since there are no airplanes that operating. On the other hand, the few airlines that are operated only require a few numbers of staff; thus, others have been sent home for temporary leave until business resumes normalcy. Not only have the flight attendants been affected but also those working at the airport. Many airports are experiencing low traffic or no traffic at all. Therefore, only a few individuals are required to be presented to be able to carry out only the most essential activities (Wells, Sah & Moghadas, 2020). Also, these individuals may be required to offer essential services to the cargo planes bringing essential goods.

Mechanical Problems

Mechanical problems is the third impact that the presence of Coronavirus has had on the airline industry. Most airlines have been grounded and this means that cannot move from one place to another. When airplanes get grounded, it is likely that they will develop mechanical problems. There are certain objects in the engine that may be clogged, making it hard for the plane to operate normally (Adiga et al., 2020).

For example, the presence of a high level of humidity may cause some parts of the plane to be corroded. These parts will have to be thoroughly checked or replaced so that the plane can resume normal operations effectively (Wells, Sah & Moghadas, 2020). This issue will be felt when the activities resume to normalcy since the planes will be experiencing a lot of mechanical problems, and this may affect effective air transport. Airlines have been made of complex equipment, and thus, they cannot just be dusted for them to go back at work (Wells, Sah & Moghadas, 2020). The grounded planes will require a lot of work as well as attention for them to be able to go back to action.

Production of New Aircrafts

Before the spread of Coronavirus became a global issue that led to restriction of movement including air transport, many airline manufacturing industries such as Boeing and Airbus were on the process of various development aircraft that can be used to transport people as well as goods from one place to another (Ozili & Arun, 2020). These companies have been forced to stop their operations since, at the moment, there are only a few airplanes being used for various activities. Therefore, the manufacture of new aircraft will be useless as they will not be used for a long time.

Lengthy and Costly Recovery

Since most of the planes have been grounded in various locations in the world, airline industries are experiencing a drop in revenue. Moreover, there are other airlines which have already gone bankrupt and this matter poses a great challenge especially when the pandemic will be over, and there will be the need to resume business. In this case, a lot of money will be needed for various airlines to recover and come back to business so that they can continue with their normal operations (Mhalla, 2020).

In the first period of recovery, there will be few people who wi...