Now is not the time to throw money at airlines

British Airways warns of 12,000 redundancies. Ryanair announces 3,000 job losses as ‘a minimum to survive the next 12 months’; Virgin Atlantic adds 3,000 more. The aero engine makers Rolls-Royce and GE talk of more than 20,000 job losses between them. Of all the sectors hard hit by pandemic, aviation is one whose prospects look blighted as far as the horizon. What should governments do about it?

Global trade will return to pre-crisis levels, but business travel may never do so: why would companies bear the risk and expense when video-conferencing is so cheap and efficient? Even if vaccines against Covid-19 are available by next year, international travel will be constrained by fear of the next virus. Health checks and quarantine rules will be the new normal for arriving passengers, as will hostility from locals even for travellers whose apps or passport stamps say they’re clean. The airport experience — Heathrow’s boss speaks of kilometre–long social-distanced boarding queues — will be grimly endured rather than relished as the duty-free opportunity it used to be.