Aviation Industry Haunted By New Variants Of COVID-19, MTI: Vaccinations Must Be Effective
JAKARTA - The Indonesian Transportation Society (MTI) assesses that the revival of the aviation industry in 2021 will be determined by the ability of the vaccination program to deal with new variants of the COVID-19 virus.
"Unless the vaccination program which will be carried out in early 2021 is successfully implemented and can effectively prevent the transmission of COVID-19, including the government's ability to convince the public that a new variant virus will not enter Indonesia and the vaccination program or better than that is able to overcome the new variant virus. , then the world of air transportation and aviation business and other sectors will be excited again and rise up positively, "said Chairman I MTI for Advocacy, Education and Transportation Regulation Law, Suharto Abdul Majid quoted from Antara, Monday, December 28.
The revival in question, he said, at least the aviation industry could recover, even gradually approaching the achievements of 2019.
"This momentum, of course, must be maintained and utilized properly by the business world together with the government and society, so that the recovery will move faster as predicted by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) that the global recovery of aviation will occur in 2021 until 2024, "he said.
IATA in its year-end release said the news about vaccines was positive but that recovery still needs time due to vaccine implementation problems and the impact of economic damage.
Suharto also suggested that the government should make efforts to save the national airlines considering the aviation industry as a global supply chain that must be maintained. So far, government intervention has been good enough, but in 2021 it must be further improved so that airlines and airports have better endurance.
He explained two possible scenarios in the aviation sector in 2021.
"In the first scenario, the vaccination program is successful and the new variant virus is prevented, then 2021 will be a year of recovery for the aviation business," said Suharto.
According to him, the government and the world of aviation together with other sectors, especially trade and tourism, can carry out strategies to motivate people to travel by air safely and safely. Basically, he said, there are three main purposes for people to travel via air, namely business, tourism, and social or family purposes.
"In the second scenario, the COVID-19 pandemic is still moving upwards, the spread is more widespread or has not decreased to a tolerable level, so the world of aviation must continue to carry out a strategy as it has done in 2020," he said.
Government assistance and interference to rescue the aviation business must be further increased while continuing to seek ways to take precautions by implementing tighter health protocols and PSBB.
"Based on experience in 2020, the strength of the Indonesian aviation world lies in domestic flights which can contribute up to 90 percent and the cargo or logistics market which provides a fairly good revenue share," said Suharto.