Airline business continuity challenges in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

The article discuss airline business continuity challenges caused by global coronavirus pandemic. The first part of article analyzes challenges for the world‘s largest airlines focusing on temporary plane storage and write-offs, net losses, staff redundancies, fall in passenger demand and received government support aspects. The second part presents results of analysis of actions taken by airlines to ensure business continuity of 25 largest airlines by examining five largest airlines of aviation market on each continent, i.e. analyzing actions taken by the largest Europe, North America, South America, Asia and Africa airlines to ensure business continuity during pandemic. The qualitative inductive analysis and comparison methods were chosen for the research. The third section provides insights from international air transport organizations on further challenges that may challange the sector in aspects of mandatory vaccination against virus, legal vaccination regulation, quick testing, changes in fleets and non-mandatory air travel corridor application. Conclusions state that airlines looked for ways to reduce net losses while facing pandemic as well as faced different national legal frameworks defining the airlines‘ eligibility for government support. Airlines have also reduced the fleets they operate and have taken early plane write-offs and staff redundancies as key measures to reduce losses.