IATA says nations must avoid post-9/11 travel mayhem after virus

The airline industry is calling for a global set of coronavirus-related health measures for when travel resumes to avoid the chaos that ensued after 9/11 when countries enacted a raft of separate requirements. The IATA Tuesday warned states against burdening airlines with rules and red tape in a bid to guard against fresh flare ups of the Covid-19 pandemic. “We are totally conscious of the need to be safe and secure, and there will be health and sanitary conditions imposed,” IATA DG Alexandre de Juniac said. “But these conditions need to be coordinated so that we don’t come back to the post-Sept. 11 situation in which many new processes were imposed and we ended up with a mess of measures piled on top of measures.” Airlines have been hit with an unprecedented near-total shutdown of travel as the health crisis sweeps across continents and governments close borders and order populations to stay at home. At the start of Q2, 70% of global carrier capacity is idled even as flights within the US continue and Chinese domestic services return, according to IATA. Jets are parked on the tarmac across airports in Europe, where more than 90% of operations have halted. Following the September, 2001 terrorist attacks in the U.S., shocked nations initially took unilateral and sometimes contradictory decisions on flight safety rules. De Juniac on Tuesday said the “physical restart” of global flying after the pandemic begins to ease will be a challenge for carriers. <br/>