The COVID-19 pandemic and airline cash flow

The impact of COVID-19 on airlines' price curves

COVID-19 has had a major negative impact on the travel industry, especially on the aviation sector. Along with travel restrictions to contain the spread of the virus, a drastic drop in demand-mainly caused by the decrease in the willingness to travel-has also been registered. This study explores the impact of COVID-19 on airline pricing curves, in terms of the price level, price dispersion, and the extent to which intertemporal price discrimination is applied. By analyzing all major European flights departing from and arriving in Italy, the results reveal a 31% overall decrease in airline price per kilometer. Additionally, price dispersion dropped, and price discrimination intensity was found to have decreased as a result of COVID-19. These outcomes can be explained in light of two major impacts of the pandemic on air travel demand, namely the variation in the passenger mix and travelers' higher price sensitivity. Further analyses indicate that-along with other market and flight characteristics-market concentration, introduced interventions to prevent and control COVID-19, and airline- and destination-types play an important role in determining prices, price dispersion, and the price discrimination intensity.

COVID-19 vaccine-induced recovery and the implications of vaccine apartheid on the global tourism industry

According to United Nations, World Tourism Organization COVID-19 has had the most devastating impact on the entire global tourism value chain, which resulted in a 74% decline in international passenger arrival, a US$1.3 trillion loss in international tourism receipts, over the US $ 2trillion loss of global domestic product and placing between 100 and 120 million jobs at risk globally. While the initial impact of the pandemic was uniform across the world, the recovery was expected to be varied across the region due to inequitable access to the COVID-19 vaccine. This study seeks to examine the implications of vaccination inequity on tourism recovery in the global tourism market. The study uses secondary, archival data and harnesses the advantages of big data generated from online activities from tourists and tourism companies obtained from authoritative sources. The study found that inequitable access to vaccinations produced a skewed recovery favouring vaccinated regions concentrated in the developed world, leaving poor regions such as Africa behind. The robot system characterising the vaccine-induced recovery had also created a vaccine diplomatic nightmare that scuttled global tourism recovery efforts. To ensure sustainable recovery, there is a need to ensure global vaccination access by rechannelling some of the excess vaccines in developed countries to countries that needs them to ensure the opening up of the entire tourism global market and reduce vulnerabilities that are coming from COVID-19 variants, which poses a threat to the gains made from the current vaccination program. The study concludes that there will not be any meaningful economic recovery without a wholesale approach covering the entire global population.

Modeling COVID-19 Impacts and Response Strategies in the Construction Industry: PLS-SEM Approach

Policymakers are developing response strategies to reduce the impacts of COVID-19. However, developing response strategies without considering their relationships with the impacts of COVID-19 is ineffective. This study aims to model the causal relationships between COVID-19 impacts and response strategies in the construction industry, using Malaysia as a case study. To achieve this, a systematic literature review and semi-structured interviews with forty industry professionals were conducted, yielding 12 impacts and 22 response strategies. The impacts and strategies were inserted into a survey, and 107 valid responses were received. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was conducted to group the impacts and strategies. Then, partial least-squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was employed to identify the causal relationship between the impacts and strategies. The EFA results indicate that the underlying impacts are project- or material-related, and the underlying strategies are market stability and financial aid, supply chain and project support, and information and legislation. The PLS-SEM results indicate that supply chain and project support are required to address material-related impacts, and market stability and financial aid are required to address project-related impacts. This is the first paper that models the relationships between COVID-19 impacts and response strategies in the construction industry.

Impact of Service Quality of Low-Cost Carriers on Airline Image and Consumers' Satisfaction and Loyalty during the COVID-19 Outbreak

Low-cost carriers (LCCs) in Saudi Arabia operate in a competitive, highly demanding environment. Customer-related attributes may be influenced by the levels of service quality in a no-frills airline, which might impact satisfaction and loyalty. Given the unique traveler and market characteristics of the aviation sector in the kingdom, we sought to investigate the impact of service quality of LCCs on customer satisfaction and loyalty and the perceived airline image. A total of 299 passengers at two international airports were approached using a modified SERVQUAL scale. Results revealed that service quality was a significant predictor of customer satisfaction (β = 0.46, p < 0.0001), airline image (β = 0.55, p < 0.0001), and customer loyalty (β = 0.16, p = 0.006). The responsiveness dimension was the most important dimension of service quality, since it predicted all other constructs (satisfaction, loyalty, and brand image). Airline tangibles and reliability were independently associated with brand image and loyalty, respectively. Based on these results, LCCs should tailor future strategic plans that rely heavily on improving different service quality measures, particularly the responsiveness domain.

COVID-19 pandemic and air transportation: Successfully navigating the paper hurricane

This paper aims to analyze and understand the impact of the corona virus disease (COVID-19) on aviation and also the role aviation played in the spread of COVID-19, by reviewing the recent scientific literature. We have collected 110 papers on the subject published in the year 2020 and grouped them according to their major application domain, leading to the following categories: Analysis of the global air transportation system during COVID-19, the impacts on the passenger-centric flight experience, and the long-term impacts on broad aviation. Based on the aggregated reported findings in the literature, this paper concludes with a set of recommendations for future scientific directions; hopefully helping aviation to prepare for a post-COVID-19 world.

Human mobility behavior in COVID-19: A systematic literature review and bibliometric analysis

This article maps the scientific literature in human mobility behavior in the context of the current pandemic. Through bibliometrics, we analyze the content of published scientific studies indexed on the Web of Science and Scopus during 2020. This enables us the detection of current hotspots and future directions of research. After a co-occurrence of keywords and evidence map analysis, four themes are identified, namely, Land Transport - Operations, Land Transport - Traffic Demand, Air Transport and Environment. We show how air transportation- and environmental-related studies tend to be more mature research whereas the understanding of changes in travel behavior (e.g., telecommuting, preventive measures or health protection behavior) tends to be immature. By using a topic modeling approach, we identify multiple sub-themes within each theme. Our framework adopts a smart literature review approach that can be constantly updated, enabling an analysis of many articles, with little investment of the researcher's time, but also provides high degree of transparency and replicability. We also put forth a research agenda that can help inform and shape transport policy and practice responses to COVID-19.