Letter to BS: Post lockdown, high costs can force out many air travellers

This refers to the column “The new normal for public transport” by Mohammad Athar (June 4). The author’s suggestion to emulate China’s revised travel protocol for Wuhan and Shanghai might not be practical for the simple reason that India will be unable to bear any fiscal load owing to its limitations. Besides, any comparison with the Chinese way of working has to first presuppose a similar political system. While everyone extols the virtues of the Chinese economic system, no one in his good senses would prefer the politics of China.
 
Also, reconfiguring air travel post lockdown, keeping in view the interests of all stakeholders, will make it costlier as it used to be in the 1960s. The aviation sector will face a strong headwind as fliers will avoid all non-essential travel. This may lead to the idling of a good number of aircraft and partial use of airports and myriad other ancillary services. The economics of all these services will have to be reworked keeping the health-related issues in mind. But the revised cost of these services will push a major section of the commuters out of the air travel ecosystem.
 
Ganga Narayan Rath, Hyderabad Letters can be mailed, faxed or e-mailed to: 

The Editor, Business Standard, Nehru House,
4 Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, New Delhi 110 002 

Fax: (011) 23720201  ·  E-mail: letters@bsmail.in

All letters must have a postal address and telephone number