Airline recovery around the world during COVID-19: Which countries are bouncing back?

Airlines were gutted in 2020. More than 60% of the world's commercial aircraft were grounded. Whole fleets headed off to spend months in the warm, dry, desert sunshine of aircraft storage facilities. In April 2020, the IATA warned that 25m jobs were at risk due to plummeting demand for air travel caused by COVID-19. According to an ICAO report, 'Effects of Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) on Civil Aviation', released on July 6, 2021, the world's airline industry lost US$371b in gross passenger revenue in 2020, with another loss of US$286-317b expected in 2021. Given the carnage in the airline industry, you might expect some big names to disappear from the skies but that didn't happen. CAPA, The Centre for Aviation, lists just 34 airlines that did not survive 2020. Yet according to travel data company Cirium, 46 commercial airlines failed in 2019, and 56 the year before. Most of 2020's casualties were smaller airlines operating only a few routes, but a few budget carriers also failed to see the year's end, including Tigerair Australia. CAPA also counted nine new regional and low-cost carriers that entered the market in 2020, along with four full-service operators.<br/>