Just how resilient is global aerospace and aviation to external shocks and disruption? We may be about to find out So far it has coped with 'Black Swan' events of the 1991 Gulf War, 9/11, SARS, the 2008 financial crisis and the Icelandic volcano. Each time, passenger growth dipped but then quickly recovered as the insatiable demand for air travel returned even stronger than before. Today, however, the engines that power the global aviation industry seem to have ingested several Black Swans at once leading to fears that the entire sector could stall. Aviation was already struggling with Boeing's 737 MAX crisis - which sees one half of the mega-duopoly in limbo as its single-aisle line is grounded for over 12 months. Meanwhile concerns over climate change and 'flight shaming' were gaining ground among consumers. Last month, came the news that the UK will leave EASA -something that had previously only been envisaged in 'worst-case' scenarios. In normal times, each of these 'Black Swans' would be headline news but all are now overshadowed by the biggest and most significant Swan - the global Coronavirus pandemic, which has led to grounded fleets, closed borders and passenger demand going off a cliff edge - in an unprecedented crisis in aviation's history. Flight schedules now look like something from the 1960s and the dawn of the jet age. That aviation will eventually come back is not in question but in what form? Civil aviation is the lifeblood of the world's globalised economy, the sinews of commerce and a sector that has lifted the horizons of millions of people around the world. If anything, this crisis is demonstrating that, however high-resolution a screen, or fast the bandwidth, people crave face-to-face contact.
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