Bad Times for Air Transport
It seems that the planets are no longer aligned in front of air transport. The latter had raised its head following the COVID disaster, which, it should be remembered, had brought down this entire sector of activity and from which it was not thought that it would recover for about ten years. The opposite happened. Within a year, traffic flows had been restored, and revenue had risen again, driven by a sharp increase in fares that was well accepted by passengers. And then, little by little, the situation deteriorated for multiple causes, each of which could be manageable but whose accumulation leads to a certain gloom.
The first and most important, for the moment, is the conflict in the Middle East, the negative consequences of which are immediate: an increase in the flight time between Europe and Asia and a sudden increase in the price of a barrel, which had stabilized at around $70 and which has risen to around $100 with peaks of nearly $120. This operational and financial difficulty comes on top of the consequences of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, which has dragged on since February 2022 without any end in sight, despite the many announcements of negotiations that have led to nothing. The embargo decreed against Russia by the so-called Western countries has resulted in a ban on overflights of this country which, it should be remembered, is by far the largest on the planet. So carriers from countries associated with the embargo are subject to detours that cost them several hours of flights on their routes between Europe and Asia, which is not the case for, for example, Chinese airlines.
But geopolitics is not the only one to blame for the prevailing gloom. Many countries are affected by repeated strikes for a wide variety of reasons. This is the case in Germany, a country renowned for the quality of its social dialogue. Now it is plagued by repeated conflicts. They reached the heart of the aviation activity with the work stoppages of Lufthansa’s flight crews: 800 flights cancelled on 12 February, then those of the PNT (flight crew, i.e. pilots) on 12 and 13 March. And that’s not all, the strikes have also severely affected airports, including those in Frankfurt and Berlin. The situation is no better in Belgium. All departures from Brussels airport, for example, were cancelled on 12 March. So what is happening in such a prestigious sector of activity that employees are showing such dissatisfaction?
And that’s not all. The situation in the United States has become very complex for some time. It began in 2025 when the failure of Washington’s air traffic control led to the collision between a military helicopter and an American Airlines aircraft that killed 67 people. In November of the same year, following a loss of an engine, an MD 11F of the giant UPS crashed in Louisville, resulting in the death of the 3 crew members but also 10 people on the ground. And recently, on March 22, an Air Canada aircraft from the Canadian operator Jazz Aviation collided with a fire truck that was crossing the runways, following an error in air traffic control at New York’s La Guardia airport. This has a negative impact, especially since a disagreement over the funding of the Department of Homeland Security between the House of Representatives and the Senate has resulted in border control officers no longer being paid, which leads to significant disruption for international flights.
Other incidents and accidents also tarnish the beautiful image of air transport. India is particularly affected. The crash of Air India Flight 171 on June 12, which everything suggests was due to a voluntary act by the pilot, even if the final report has not yet been published, caused 260 deaths. This proves that there is still a fragility in this activity, which is so controlled and which has made so much technical progress, and that is the behaviour of the pilots. The crash of the Germanwings flight in France, the mysterious disappearance of flight MH 370 and the crash of the Air India flight demonstrate this. And we don’t yet know how to settle this delicate issue. I also note that the situation is not all rosy in India, if I am to believe the somewhat surprising resignation of the director of Indigo, Pieter Elbers, who had made it one of the most important carriers on the planet in a short time.
We could also point to the failure of the software of the Airbus 320, damaged by solar radiation. All the aircraft concerned had to be grounded as a matter of urgency. However, even if not all versions were affected, 12,257 Airbus 320 series had been delivered in September 2025. Small causes, big effects.
It is time for air travel to get rid of these negative aspects. It will need a lot of optimism to face the challenges that await it.
