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原文传递 Passenger Air Travel: Adapting to Meet the Changing Environment

题名：	Passenger Air Travel: Adapting to Meet the Changing Environment
正文语种：	eng
摘要：	The COVID-19 Pandemic has created a new reality for the passenger travel industry. Chief Executive Officer of United Airlines Scott Kirby provided insight into how his company adapted to meet this changing environment. The comments came during his keynote speech at the 2021 Gov-Travels Symposium. Kirby recounted that when COVID-19 arrived in Italy in late February 2020, United recognized it would be a serious worldwide event and started planning for what was to come. The company also took a leadership role early in the pandemic response, partnering with the Department of Defense (DOD) and Defense Advanced Project Research Agency (DARPA) for the most comprehensive study ever of onboard safety of airplanes, focused on the transmission of airborne infectious diseases. The results of the study showed that airplanes were in fact safe environments due to their air circulation rates. Air in an aircraft is recirculated every 2-3 minutes using HEPA-grade filters with 50 percent of the air coming in fresh from outside. In contrast, air in a building is recirculated on average every 20-30 minutes. United was also the first large brand to require masks. Despite United's early and active response, the extent of the pandemic has been a shock both to the company and the industry at large. In April 2020, United's revenues were down 99 percent. At the time, only medical professionals headed to the COVID front lines and personal protective equipment (PPE) were flying. "Things have recovered some, but our revenues are still down almost 70 percent and that's just a cataclysmic environment financially for airlines," said Kirby. "I appreciate the response from Washington, the bipartisan response, for the CARES [Corona-virus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security] Act I and CARES Act Ⅱand now what's going on for CARES Ⅲ, ha[s] been critical to maintaining support for the parts of the economy that were devastated by Coronavirus."
出版年：	2021
期刊名称：	Defense Transportation Journal
卷：	77
期：	2