The World Aviation Association is very concerned about the slow rate of vaccination and now fears that the travel restrictions still in place will not be lifted in time for the important summer business. The IATA assumes that the airlines will fly in even higher losses than originally forecast.

However, the problems do not only lie in Europe, because in other regions of the world, which are often referred to as “poorer countries”, vaccination campaigns are very slow, if not impossible. One of the reasons for this is that rich nations buy almost all available vaccines.

The IATA fears that numerous countries will not lift travel restrictions in the summer of 2021. For the airlines, this would be a financial disaster, because economist Brian Pearce estimated on Wednesday that the global loss will rise to around 40 billion euros. Furthermore, it is assumed that only 43 percent of the transport performance of 2019 will be achieved.