More Airline Failures Ahead: Al Baker

The Chief of Qatar Airways group Akbar Al Baker predicts more airline failures are in the horizon, as carriers get complacent about recovery prospects. Al Baker was speaking at the opening of the Future Travel Experience APEX virtual expo, where he gave a wide-ranging keynote address on the postpandemic transformation of air transport. Asked by BBC World News presenter Aaron Heslehurst how he would encourage the aerospace supply chain, which has been equally hard-hit by the COVID-19 Pandemic, Al Baker said that governments should also render support to suppliers, especially to “highly-specialised, technologically-advanced suppliers”. This was because when travel demand returns in the post-pandemic future, “you will need them down the line again when the industry starts ramping up”, he said. Al Baker remarked that the industry was “not out of the woods yet”. “We are not out into good days again. We will still face a difficult period going down the line. And when that happened, all the airlines were very excited in June and July 2020. And look what’s happening now. I am predicting that there will be some more failures, because people will again get relaxed,” Al Baker notes.