Mastering the New Reality and Planning for Known Unknowns

COVID-19 continues to ravage the aviation sector and populations around the world. Perhaps the most difficult thing to contend with, is what we don’t know. How long will it last? When can we return to some sense of normalcy? Perhaps even on a personal level, do I have it? The not knowing amidst a daily media flurry of information is really difficult to get your head around.

For the aviation and humanitarian sectors, like everything and everyone, operations are hamstrung and largely incapacitated. NGOs fearing the worst have brought their international representatives home, passenger airlines are down to 5-10% of operational capacity, and without an end in sight, are doing the best they can to forecast and meet passenger and cargo demand. 

A knock-on effect of passenger carriers being down that people might not realize is that a massive amount of global cargo travels in the ‘belly’ of passenger jets. That’s capacity that no longer exists. This means that anyone and everyone is turning to the air cargo carriers, and demand is outstripping supply by 4-5 times. At first, the destination was China, now it is the US and Europe. However, soon, if not already, the epicenter will likely shift toward increasingly fragile places in Latin America and Africa.

As the leader of Airlink, an organization that has a toe in both sectors, this presents a unique and unprecedented problem. The only way to move critical protective gear over oceans and long distances quickly is by air. However, right now, much of the humanitarian sector is hamstrung as it is competing for resources with governments around the globe, and are themselves fearful of traveling. At the same time, the majority of the aviation sector is at a standstill. 

Ultimately, for the tide to turn, we must work in unison to buy time for an effective vaccine to be developed and administered. That’s the end game. All that being said, a bright spot for me is witnessing the creative ways in which local communities and industry sectors are banding together to help each other.  

Through a logistics/airfreight lens, we’re seeing numerous examples of passenger airlines stepping up to carry cargo in the seats of the unused aircraft and many other examples of kind acts to support their fellow [wo]man. 

The cargo carriers are doing an equally great job, working around the clock, under tremendous pressure. This is not surprising to me. During my tenure at Airlink, as we’ve responded to global humanitarian situations around the world, I have seen this passion within the industry before.

While we are understandably concentrating on the problems of the now, few people are looking to the next set of knowable unknowns. Over the next 3-9 months, places prone to seasonal emergencies (Atlantic Hurricane Season, Southeast Asia’s monsoon season,etc.) and home to some of the world’s most fragile communities will be hit by a double body blow. We know these things will happen because they always do. We just don’t have an exact date. 

COVID-19 will continue to cause unprecedented systemic supply chain issues related to medical equipment procurement, air and ground transport, customs clearance, and NGO resourcing that are affecting both highly developed and less developed populations. Airlink is actively working with its global air carrier network through our new initiative AviationC.A.R.E.S. to develop a dynamic distribution network to support NGOs.  

AviationC.A.R.E.S. (Coordinated Air Response for Emergency Supplies), provides a framework for the aviation sector to facilitate a coordinated COVID-19 response that will deliver humanitarian relief by NGOs in the short, medium and long term. 

This ‘Air Bridge’ concept builds on Airlink’s 10 years of global emergency airlift experience, including facilitating the movement of 1,313,464 pounds of medical supplies on behalf of 48 NGOs to tackle Ebola in 2014-15.

The program has three phases - 1) Short-term: combat COVID-19 outbreaks around the world; 2) Medium-term: support highly vulnerable communities as they fight to ensure continuity of regular health care as systems become overwhelmed by COVID-19 cases; and 3) Long-term: to provide relief to communities experiencing natural disasters and other humanitarian crises during COVID-19 outbreaks.

So far, we’ve delivered a modest amount of cargo, moving over 21,000 pounds of supplies (nearly half a million masks and gowns) to support our NGO partners. In the last few days, we teamed up with United Airlines, Flexport and MedShare to deliver 50,000 masks to medical staff in NYC and New Jersey and Southwest Airlines and International Medical Corp to get medical volunteers to New York. We’re actively engaged with over a dozen NGOs to move supplies across the globe as they become available. And when relief workers start traveling again, we’ll be there to support them too.

Ultimately, I’m encouraged by the strength of the human spirit and peoples’ innate desire to help others. From what I’ve seen, even with social distancing, we have perhaps never been more together than we are now.