Coronavirus crisis to bring airline profits run to abrupt halt

While IATA stopped short of issuing any fresh forecasts for the year in its latest media briefing, it left little doubt regarding the extent to which the coronavirus crisis will drive the industry’s unprecedented run of profits to an abrupt end. March 5, IATA outlined 2 potential scenarios for the impact of the coronavirus outbreak on the airline industry, the worst of which suggested US$113b could be wiped off airline passenger revenues in 2020. That is based on projected passenger revenues of $581b in 2020, and total anticipated airline revenues of $872b. “Undoubtedly it’s too low,” IATA chief economist Brian Pearce said Tuesday, when asked whether the industry outlook had worsened. ”We can’t say at this stage by how much that is an under-estimate, but the situation is worse than we thought it would be,” he says. <br/>