Veteran airline bosses reflect on aviation’s future after Covid-19
On September 11 2001, Donald Carty, then CE of American Airlines, was at home shaving when a dispatcher at the Dallas base called to say that a flight attendant had reported her aircraft had been hijacked. Carty said he would be in the office in 20 minutes. When the news came that a plane had flown into New York’s World Trade Center, many initially assumed it was a small private aircraft. “I knew in my gut that it wasn’t,” he recalls. For Rod Eddington, then-CE of British Airways, his first thought on news of the 9/11 attacks was of the BA aircraft that were heading to the US without enough fuel to return. The aircraft made for Newfoundland and Nova Scotia instead. At her Stansted airport base in Essex, Barbara Cassani, head of low-cost airline Go, worried that the US attacks meant that an aircraft, perhaps one of hers, would be heading into London’s Canary Wharf. Having accounted for all of Go’s planes, she set about dealing with the immediate crisis — heightened security and a collapse in passenger confidence in flying. The three have vivid memories of 9/11 and the trauma that followed, which inform their view of the Covid-19 crisis gripping the airline industry now and their assessment of what comes next. Story explores their take on the current situation. The former chief executives agree on three points: crises are part of running an airline, the current one is the modern industry’s most severe — worse than 9/11 — and the recovery will be long and uneven. Some flyers, particularly business travellers, will be reassessing how much flying they need to do in future.<br/>
https://portal.staralliance.com/cms/news/hot-topics/2020-06-23/general/veteran-airline-bosses-reflect-on-aviation2019s-future-after-covid-19
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Veteran airline bosses reflect on aviation’s future after Covid-19
On September 11 2001, Donald Carty, then CE of American Airlines, was at home shaving when a dispatcher at the Dallas base called to say that a flight attendant had reported her aircraft had been hijacked. Carty said he would be in the office in 20 minutes. When the news came that a plane had flown into New York’s World Trade Center, many initially assumed it was a small private aircraft. “I knew in my gut that it wasn’t,” he recalls. For Rod Eddington, then-CE of British Airways, his first thought on news of the 9/11 attacks was of the BA aircraft that were heading to the US without enough fuel to return. The aircraft made for Newfoundland and Nova Scotia instead. At her Stansted airport base in Essex, Barbara Cassani, head of low-cost airline Go, worried that the US attacks meant that an aircraft, perhaps one of hers, would be heading into London’s Canary Wharf. Having accounted for all of Go’s planes, she set about dealing with the immediate crisis — heightened security and a collapse in passenger confidence in flying. The three have vivid memories of 9/11 and the trauma that followed, which inform their view of the Covid-19 crisis gripping the airline industry now and their assessment of what comes next. Story explores their take on the current situation. The former chief executives agree on three points: crises are part of running an airline, the current one is the modern industry’s most severe — worse than 9/11 — and the recovery will be long and uneven. Some flyers, particularly business travellers, will be reassessing how much flying they need to do in future.<br/>
