1: This is what the skies looked like in March
4: And this was one month later
6: When passenger numbers were a staggering...
8: ...94% lower than the previous year...
12: ...thanks to the covid-19 pandemic
15: Business is now starting to pick up
19: But travel is becoming increasingly localised and complicated
23: This world of quite easy travel and relatively free movement...
27: ...has evaporated almost overnight
30: This will have consequences far beyond cancelled holiday bookings
35: It could exacerbate existing inequalities...
39: ...create economic hardship...
42: ...and disrupt the workings of the globalised world
52: The tourism industry is enormous
56: Every year, international holiday-makers spend $1.6trn
62: That’s more than Spain’s GDP
65: Or at least they did, before the coronavirus pandemic
70: The CDC just told everyone...
72: ...do not travel
73: Postpone or cancel all non-essential travel
79: In April 2020 planes carried just 31m passengers around the world
84: The sort of passenger levels last seen in the late 1970s
90: In April this year, 200,000 passengers...
93: ...went through Heathrow Airport in London...
97: ...which is fewer than would go through on any single day in a normal month
104: IATA, the airline trade body...
106: ...has said flights will not return to pre-pandemic levels for several years
112: In China, flights are now just 21% below normal levels...
117: ...while in America, air traffic began to pick up in May...
121: ...but remains 57% below normal
124: And in much of Europe, flight numbers are still around 75% lower...
128: ...than the same time last year
132: And while passenger numbers are creeping up...
135: ...some areas, like business travel, may never recover
139: After the last financial crisis the number of overseas business trips...
143: ...taken per person in the UK fell by a third and never picked up
148: Whereas leisure travel did, eventually, climb back to pre-crisis levels
153: Were the same thing to happen again...
155: ...it could have a significant impact on airline profits
159: Business travellers actually subsidise leisure travellers
164: Your £250 transatlantic fare in the back of the plane...
168: ...is possible because somebody at the front of the plane...
171: ...is paying £800 or £1,500
175: Airlines are already struggling
177: Virgin Atlantic has annouced plans to cut more than 3,000 jobs in the UK
182: Air Canada lost more than $1bn in the first quarter
186: In March IATA warned that without government aid...
190: ...just 30 of the world’s 700 or so airlines would make it through the pandemic
197: The airlines that survive...
198: ...will determine the competition and prices on certain routes
204: Some airlines are in pretty good financial shape
207: Within Europe there remains a lot of competition
210: Transatlantic flights, there is still plenty of competition
213: But on routes where there is much thinner competition, prices will go up
217: There’s no doubt about that
219: For the well-off, the price increases may be an annoyance
223: But they could also have a significant impact on global mobility
227: As lower-income travellers may find themselves priced out of the skies
232: What happens with airfares and with the prices of flights...
238: ...affects not just summer holidays
240: Migrants have parents or spouses in one country and work in another
245: And for all of these people, it is quite important that...
248: ...they continue to be able to go home
251: In June, 189 countries had imposed some form of travel restriction
256: Ranging from measures like quarantine, to border closures
261: And governments are desperate to open up travel as quickly as possible
265: The government is to make it easier for British holiday-makers...
268: ...to travel to much of Europe this summer
271: Though these arrangements may help tourists...
275: ...they could also create an increasingly inequitable system
279: The British government is working to allow Brits to go off on holiday...
282: ...to, say, Spain or France and come back without the need for quarantine
287: But that doesn’t take into account the fact that...
289: ...someone may have a partner in America...
293: ...parents in Nigeria or siblings in Pakistan
297: And they won’t be able to go see people who are very, very important to them
301: The risk is that we end up with a very uneven and possibly unfair system
307: The relatively free movement enjoyed by many tourists...
311: ...is a modern phenomenon...
313: ...that has played an increasingly important role in globalisation...
316: ...and domestic economies
319: Take China
320: For around 30 years until the end of the 1970s...
324: ...travel to and from China was heavily restricted
328: But today China sends more tourists abroad than any other country
332: And they spend more money
334: In 2018 Chinese tourists spent over $270bn overseas
341: Almost double that spent by Americans
344: And the limitations on travel caused by the pandemic...
347: ...could have a knock-on effect on global co-operation and economic growth
353: The worry is that these restrictions persist in the long-term...
357: ...and then become entangled in all sorts of other things...
360: ...such as reciprocity, trade negotiations...
365: ...any sort of geopolitical dispute between countries
368: And so we return to a sort of mid-20th century world...
371: ...of closed borders, lots of restrictions and paperwork...
374: ...and just less interchange between countries
380: Faced with an ever-changing array of travel restrictions...
383: ...many travellers are looking closer to home for their holidays
386: In May, 80% of total reservations on Airbnb were made domestically
392: And between January and April...
394: ...foreign searches for summer holiday accommodation in Spain...
397: ...fell by as much as 94%
401: The rise in localised travel could be good news...
403: ...for the environment
405: In 2018 carbon-dioxide emissions from commercial flights...
409: ...accounted for 2.4% of global fossil-fuel emissions
413: The answer to this quandary is not to stop people from flying
417: Rather, it’s to make planes more efficient and...
420: ...to focus on innovation in the industry
423: The pandemic has accelerated the shift towards efficiency
426: So, some older planes are being taken out of the sky
430: The covid-19 pandemic will dramatically affect...
433: ...the way in which people move around the world
436: But rather than driving economic growth...
439: ...as the travel industry has in the past...
441: ...new restrictions could affect globalisation...
444: ...sowing division and increasing inequality
449: My name is Leo Mirani
450: I’m a correspondent on the Britain desk at The Economist
453: And if you’d like to read more about the impact that covid-19...
455: ...is having on international travel, click the link opposite
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