Introduction
The recent history has seen two topical examples of severe disruptions within the aviation industry. The first one occurred at the very beginning of the 21st century when the United States fell victim to one of the largest terrorist attacks in history on September 11, 2001. This attack was performed with the use of civil planes, which explains the profound impact it had on aviation. Two decades later, the entire planet was affected by the onset of the novel coronavirus pandemic, also known as COVID-19. This time, the entirety of international travel was disrupted in an attempt to contain the disease and prevent from spreading across national borders. While these events have had a strong impact on aviation, the exact patterns vary significantly.
Background
The September 11 attack, also known as 9/11, became one of the largest acts of terror in modern history. On this day, several groups of terrorists associated with Al-Qaeda hijacked four civil aircraft on the territory of the United States. In the course of the incident, one of the planes crashed as a result of passenger and crew resistance against terrorists. Yet, three other aircraft found their targets, inflicting serious damage and causing multiple casualties. One of them hit the Pentagon, destroying a considerable part of the building. However, 9/11 is widely associated with the events that unfolded in Manhattan, New York. During the peak of the attack, two hijacked planes collided with the twin towers of the World Trade Center, causing the building to collapse. The attack had a death toll of nearly 3,000 people with about 25,000 injured. Furthermore, the towers were destroyed in the middle of one of the largest cities on Earth, which caused serious psychological repercussions for all witnesses.
Twenty years later, a different event occurred in the global environment that also profoundly affected the aviation industry. In the early 2020, the cases of novel coronavirus, first identified in China, began to rise in a range of countries across the world. The spread of COVID-19 was rapid, prompting the World Health Organization to proclaim it a pandemic. Even though it was not the first lethal virus encountered by humanity in the 21st century, the scale of the COVID-19 pandemic became unparalleled. More specifically, there have been confirmed cases in virtually all countries with the death toll rising above six million people. Because of the increase contagiousness of the virus and its increased mortality, the world’s governments had to take strong measures to prevent it from spreading. This included lockdown protocols and the closures of international travel, which practically paralyzed all civil aviation at once. With international travel bans and flights being suspended indefinitely, the industry submerged into a major crisis. While it is yet to recover from it fully, it appears possible to draw comparison between the two events separated by two decades.
HRM, Marketing, and Logistics
Due to the nature of the crisis that emerged in September, 2001, the majority of the measures were directed at ensuring the safety of air travel. The area of human research management had to undergo serious transformations to meet the new requirements. As the industry faced increased risks of terrorist infiltration, the importance of real and meticulous background checks rose. In other words, airlines, airports, and related organizations had to pay more attention to the people who work there. Furthermore, all of the personnel, especially the flight crew, received additional training sessions on how to identify similar threats in their line of duty. The emphasis has been on the psychological aspect of prevention rather than physical resistance to a hijacking attempt. In the case of COVID-19, the threat is not as observable, and the scope of the problem global, which implied a different approach to preventive measures.
From a marketing perspective, both events provided passengers with an incentive to avoid air travel as much as possible. Therefore, the key objective of aviation marketers was to convince travelers that airlines are a safe form of transportation. These objectives have been addressed by different means, considering the objective differences in the nature of the two threats. The shock after the 9/11 caused a rapid decline in enplanements, which, however, was not as dramatic as in 2020 (Figure 1). The COVID-19 pandemic has been incomparably longer, creating a lasting decrease in air travel, which was virtually reduced to zero at the bottom of the graph. While some of the travelers have been impatient to resume their international activities, the majority of the population remains alarmed of the ongoing presence of the virus. Thus, the recovery from the COVID-19 impact on the market is expected to require more time. Under these circumstances, marketers are seeking ways of convincing the people that spending hours in a confined space is safe, as long as all passengers adhere to the safety regulations.
Table 1. 9/11 and COVID-19 Challenges in the Aviation Industry (BTS, 2021)
Impact on Regulations and Macroeconomic Environment
The two hazards in question have prompted the industry to revise its regulation policies. In 2001, the emphasis was laid on the immediate counter-terrorism initiatives in cooperation with global intelligence units and law enforcements. The aviation communities required companies to adhere with a series of new security protocols that aimed to reduce the risks of a terrorist attack. As the history of the past two decades suggests, this work was productive, as no comparable incidents occurred after 9/11 (Ford et al., 2020). Similar policies have been introduced with regard to the prevention of COVID-19 spread. In this case, the regulations revolve around public health and disinfection, from obligatory face masks to compulsory vaccinations. Furthermore, the presence of advanced technological solutions has helped airlines to introduce effective tracking mechanisms for COVID-19 cases (Gössling, 2020). In total, the two sets of measures address different sides of the global flight safety. One major difference consists of the fact that the entirety of counter-terrorism policy is to be executed by the aviation organizations themselves. At the same time, COVID-related policies are also a matter of travelers’ responsibility, making them more difficult to implement in full due to the scale of the issue.
Evidently, both 9/11 and COVID-19 had a strong impact on the market, as a whole. Amid such serious decreases in enplanements, the share prices of airline companies plummeted, causing their holders to lose money. On the other hand, neither of the losses has been permanent, as the dynamics in Figure 1 point toward the gradual recovery of the market in both cases. In the case of 9/11, this attack became a shock for the entire international community, but the majority of the impact was experienced by the United States. Thus, its foreign competitors sustained fewer losses in 2001. However, COVID-19 started a global crisis that is not limited to aviation (Dube, Nhamo, and Chikodzi, 2021) Because of the pandemic, losses are endured by travel and hospitality industries, as well as most segments of international trade. Under these circumstances, domestic airlines were put in a more beneficial position as international borders remained closed (Gössling, 2020). Moreover, many travelers saw a decrease in purchasing power, which acted in favor of low-cost companies, as compared to premium offers.
Conclusion
Ultimately, both COVID-19 and 9/11 attacks affected the global aviation industry profoundly. In the second case, the United States segment had to endure the majority of effects, whereas the pandemic instilled global repercussions. Another key difference is related to the length of the crisis. 2001 attacks unfolded in a matter of hours and put the international community in a state of shock from which it mostly recovered within a single year. The COVID-19 situation has been unfolding for over two years already. Even though the industry has exhibited a respectable ability to adapt to the new reality, a full recovery is likely to be delayed for several more years. In the end, these events led to significant policy reconsiderations that concerned two different spheres of aviation safety: counter-terrorism security and epidemiological safety. It is expected that the lessons from 9/11 and COVID-19 will make aviation more resilient in the face of future crises.
Reference List
Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS). (2021) Twenty years later, how does post-9/11 air travel compare to the disruptions of COVID-19?
Dube, K., Nhamo, G., and Chikodzi, D. (2021) ‘COVID-19 pandemic and prospects for recovery of the global aviation industry’, Journal of Air Transport Management, 92, 102022.
Ford, J. et al. (2020) ‘An economic study of the US Post-9/11 aviation security’, Open Journal of Business and Management, 8(5), pp. 1923-1945.
Gössling, S. (2020) ‘Risks, resilience, and pathways to sustainable aviation: a COVID-19 perspective’, Journal of Air Transport Management, 89, 101933.