Davos conference avoids critical questions on COVID and aviation

While inertia, rising COVID case numbers, quarantines and lockdowns strangle attempts to get people back in the air, the great and good have attended (in-person or virtually) the annual World Economic Forum at Davos in Switzerland in the last week of Jan-2021.

The lack of any substantial discussion there of the ever-deepening crisis for aviation that is COVID-19, and how to get out of it, raises the question of who can formulate a global policy to achieve that aim. Individual countries, run by politicians concerned with their 'legacy' and driven by national self-interest, are not going to rise to the challenge; nor, apparently, are collections of states like the European Union.

The only remedy must surely come from the United Nations and its agencies, in league with knowledgeable aviation and tourism organisations.

This report examines some of the questions those bodies should be - but aren't - answering.