According to a UN news release on March 20, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and the World Health Organization (WHO) joined the UN World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) for a virtual teleconference on COVID-19. ICAO Secretary General Dr. Fang Liu, who was present at the conference, stressed that “even while the air transport sector can be vulnerable to many external factors beyond its control, COVID-19 is presenting States and operators with entirely new levels of systemic risk.”

UNWTO Secretary General Zurab Pololikashvili and IMO Secretary General Kitack Lim also made a speech respectively. A key conclusion of the ministers and senior UN officials present was that calls would need to be made urgently to governments to take immediate actions, including through financial aid packages and incentives, to help the aviation and tourism sectors withstand current COVID-19 risks and impacts.

Dr. Liu remarked that “we have confronted economic sustainability challenges in the past in terms of various financial crises, the 9/11 attacks, the Eyjafjallaj?kull volcano eruption, and indeed with earlier pandemics, but the COVID-19 consequences the air transport sector is confronted with today are truly unprecedented.” She stressed that commercial operators had “registered significant losses not only in specific areas of COVID-19 impact, but indeed globally given the realities of network interconnectivity and preventative actions now being carried to limit international mobility.” Dr. Liu also noted that “all of these effects have depleted the society-wide sustainability benefits which air transport is relied on for, especially in developing States, and without the related revenues continuing to flow into State coffers, direct government action on the UN SDGs may likely become curtailed.”

All industry stakeholders were unanimous in their perception that global connectivity by air is facing dire and possibly critical risks due to the threats to the economic sustainability of operators being posed by COVID-19 response protocols worldwide.

The UN agencies present agreed that a wide ranging coordination body be established to begin addressing the public-private response required to address these significant and sector-threatening consequences.