Air Canada also is looking at how air is circulated onboard its planes. “That’s one of the things we need to adjust to make the flight safer,” said Strauss.
The World Health Organization cites research showing there’s very little risk of communicable diseases being shared in-flight through a plane’s ventilation system. The plane’s cabins use filters which trap virus particles, according to the WHO’s website.
While Air Canada predicts better times for the industry by Christmas, Helane Becker, an airline analyst at Cowen and Company, points out that other countries will need to lift their pandemic restrictions and reopen their economies first, in order to convince people to travel.
“You can’t go to London and quarantine for 14 days,” said Becker. “If your vacation was going to be a long weekend and you go, it doesn’t work.
“We need to get all these governments on the same page to kind of open things up. Everyone wants it to be done safely because no one wants the recurrence of cases.”
Strauss said there are signs the economy is about to turn around. Manufacturers are moving parts around the world on Air Canada’s cargo flights, he said, and his company is getting ready to transport retail goods from clothing manufacturers to North America.
“These are companies that only make these moves when they think there’s an economy coming back,” she said. “That makes me very optimistic, that we are at the beginning steps of a rebound.”
