Resilience due to Diversity: Academic Concepts for reorganizing post-COVID-19 Air Travel

The pandemic of the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 influences the entire aviation system tremendously. It is already foreseeable that air travel will not be the same in the post-COVID-19 world; still we face high uncertainty in that regard. Among other aspects, novel operational concepts are necessary to ensure social distancing for passengers and employees to minimize transmissions. A trend of airline consolidation is possible, requiring business model innovations. Other aspects to consider are airport security processes, the door-to-door air travel chain, and an increasing demand for bundled travel products and personal travel planner. This discussion paper reviews novel operational concepts supporting an efficient air transport system in the post COVID-19 world aiming to regain passengers’ trust into air travel. Three operational concepts are discussed in detail: (1) an approach towards a novel business model, (2) a travel assistant application, (3) continuous screening measures. Holling's adaptive cycle is used as the underlying theory, showing how air transport players can build up their resilience capacities towards shocks, such as the COVID-19-crisis. Based on the adaptive cycle, it is elaborated that diversity plays a key role in restructuring systems. It is exemplified how academic ideas and concepts can support the aviation industry to fight COVID-19