If we examine first what turned a Wuhan epidemic into a world wide pandemic killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people we find it was aviation what dunnit.
China is not the place it was a few decades ago. No way. Today it is as highly connected as any other country.
And the people of Wuhan – all umpty-ump millions – are just like us. They have bucket lists and reasons to fly far and wide.
So when sometime in December 2019 the first few people got infected with coronavirus they had not the foggiest idea it had happened. Neither did anyone else at first. So they got on their planes and flew far and wide. And into Wuhan came many thousands more who sampled the delights and set off home, with more souvenirs than they realised.
It is no good blaming China for this part of the disaster – they knew no more in the first few days than anyone else. Forget where the virus started – once it was travelling it was inevitably going to be a pandemic. Days would pass before any symptoms raised alarm bells.
Looking back at the great influenza pandemic of the post WWI decade and which killed in the multi-millions, what spread that was soldiers going home. It originated maybe in Spain but it took the armies of the suddenly peaceful world to get it world-wide.
So here at Wuhan. And we know it and the airlines of the world are virtually grounded. Or should be. And the cost of this disaster, which their profitable activities took to the world, is so great that they will never be the same again. No really, never.
For even when they begin to fly again they will be a shadow of their former selves. And I believe we, their customers, will be harder to find. Much harder.
For not only will we all be a lot more cautious but two economic realities will bite hard. We will all have less money to spend, recovering individually and nationally, and the cost of flying will never be as low as it was 2019.
We all know more today about the reality of what happens on board. At 30,000 feet the air is thin as Everest and bitterly cold – sub-zero. Aircraft cannot carry oxygen for their passengers so they use what they have in the cabin and draw in and heat up extra – about 25-30%. They operate the cabin at about 9lbs per sq in instead of the 14.8lbs at ground level.
To be fair this gives them a complete air change every few minutes. But pretty much all of it will have passed through pretty well all of the lungs on board by then...
And while on the ground the air is mostly still and most viruses fall harmlessly down, in the cabin it is different. Your mouth throws air and virus-laden droplets forward. They are heavy and affected by air resistance so they fall down and six feet is safe. In the air they fall into the back of the seat in front and hair of the occupant. And your nose points down, for a reason. A sneeze generates droplets at 200 mph. Should you sneeze (and who does not at 500 knots in dry cabin air?) those droplets will fall in your lap or on you magazine or tray. The cabin air is on the move all the time. Those droplets could be anywhere in a few seconds.
Of course in a full load of say 250 passengers your average 757 or A380 the manifest will include only a few coronavirus carriers. Say back in Wuhan there were four on each flight out. The re-infection number (R) back then was high, maybe 3-4. So in the first hour say the four infected 12-16. They in turn hit 36-48 in the next hour and they got say 120 in the next... by the time they landed practically everyone on board, including crew, could be infected.
Life is never quite that cruel but even if only 50 stepped off with the virus the outlook was already pretty grim. And that was one aircraft.
When the airlines get flying again is an open question and what rules they will have to follow is unknown as yet. But one thing I suggest is certain. And leads to another:
- Unless we have a vaccine the rules will be draconian.
- And even if we do, only those WITH immunity will get free, unfettered travel.
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