Aviation must keep pace with sky-high demand – The National

Aviation must keep pace with sky-high demand – The National

Quick thinking is an important quality in a pilot. When the pandemic hit, Etihad Airways Senior First Officer Maurits Robert van Gelder had to demonstrate it outside the cockpit.

Due to plummeting demand during Covid-19, airlines around the world had to adopt significant cost-saving measures, including redundancies. Etihad was no different. After finding out that he was among those being laid off, Mr van Gelder, a Dutch national, looked for ways to keep himself in Abu Dhabi, because he still had “full faith” in being re-employed when the sector recovered. But a stint in real estate and personal training left him unsatisfied. Eighteen months later, Mr van Gelder was able to return to the job he loved, after Etihad began rehiring staff due to rebounding demand. After a tough year and a half it was a remarkably quick return to the skies, indicative of what the airlines' chief executive, Tony Douglas, expects to be "impressive" results in the first half of 2022.

That increase in activity is being mirrored across the global aviation sector. The International Air Transport Association reported in March that total demand for air travel in January 2022 was up by more than 80 per cent from January 2021.