COVID-19: Island nations' serious loss of air services. Part 1

When the General Manager of Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, the world's busiest, reports an 85% year-on-year decline in passengers since the coronavirus outbreak, says revenue could be down by 50% or more, and that the airport normally services 26,000 flights per day but it has decreased to 1200, and "those flights are mostly empty"- you know that the aviation industry has a big problem.

But at the other end of the scale from Atlanta, in the world's small island states, particularly remote ones, for which air travel is an absolute necessity, it is much more of a problem.

An island state is a country whose primary territory consists of one or more islands or parts of islands. Broadly 25% of all independent nations are island countries.

This report looks at a selection of those states and airports, and at how they have been impacted by the COVID-19 outbreak.