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Originally Posted by Squallrider
I mean if they furlough January 2021, they will need ppl back by summer if a vaccine is widely available which all indications are that one will be.
Even if an effective vaccine is developed by early 2021, that is not nearly the end of this air travel downturn. That vaccine has to be manufactured for 7 Billion people, distributed, and injected into 7 Billion people. Then when that monumental task is complete, we still have the economic fallout from the largest recession in nearly 90 years.
Summer 2021 and Summer 2022 total passenger numbers will be below Summer 2019, and likely at lower revenue as well. The question becomes how much lower, and whether a combination of retirements and the VSP and ExTO programs cut costs enough to avoid furloughs.
I applaud Southwest management for their aggressive VSP and ExTO programs. I believe Southwest was in a unique position to do this on such a large scale compared to the legacy carriers due to its business model of not having much international exposure, having no large wide bodies that are fairly useless right now, and the fact that their primary customer base (leisure travelers) are traveling at higher percentages than business travelers.