Waiting out SARS
Struggling airlines not yet grounded by epidemic
By Maria Kowalewska
As new cases of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) are identified worldwide on a daily basis and the mortality rate grows at a slow but ominous pace, local businessmen believe that the long-term effect of the epidemic could be more fatal for the tourism and airline industries both worldwide and in Poland than the recent Iraqi conflict.
SARS, a new disease that was first recognized in late February, has spread particularly along international air travel corridors, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). As of April 22, almost 4,000 cases have been reported in 25 countries on five continents, and the syndrome's mortality rate is roughly 5%.
In early April, WHO recommended that people traveling to Hong Kong, Beijing and the Guangdong Province in China, where most SARS cases have been reported, should consider postponing all but essential travel.
Experts believe that the current travel restrictions, as well as ones that are likely to be enforced as the disease continues to spread, will soon be a factor that will curb passengers' willingness to fly.
Depending on how fast the epidemic spreads via air travel and how quickly it could be brought under control, the negative repercussions on the airline industry could extend anywhere from six months, if it is contained and eradicated quickly, to several years if research has to continue, local professionals say. This is likely to reflect negatively on airlines as well as the entire aviation industry.
"Most airlines cannot and do not want to pay for grounded planes and crew," said Elżbieta Marciszewska, an airline industry analyst at the Warsaw School of Economics. "The need to adhere to WHO regulations in terms of quarantines and passenger checks also makes travel less comfortable."
Moreover, SARS could also reflect badly on the whole aviation industry, as airlines will likely start to review their orders for new aircraft. According to Marciszewska, Asian airlines have the most orders in the world, sometimes buying 20 or 30 airplanes at a time.
"Now, when it is difficult to predict how long SARS will last and how the epidemic will develop, it is also difficult to believe that new orders will be made," she said.
An industry slump
An Air Transport Association report said that three recent key events have affected the airline industry: the 2001 terrorist attacks, the recent war in Iraq and the SARS epidemic. These events and their combined aftermaths are enough to dump the airline industry into a slump it has not experienced for a long time, the report said.
"SARS is the final blow to the industry after the two other recent events along with the Asian and Russian economic crises," Marciszewska said.
Not only business travel, but more importantly tourism and holiday flights, will be affected by SARS, Marciszewska says, since faraway destinations are serviced only via the airlines.
If it continues to spread, the disease will also cause problems with European tourism, experts said, and could affect the domestic industry.
"Countries that have not been directly hit by SARS, such as Poland, will still suffer because of it, as tourists from countries where the disease has spread will not be coming to Europe this season; they account for quite a lot of visits to the region," Marciszewska said.
Domestic travel agents say that their businesses have already suffered from SARS travel alerts.
"The SARS situation has affected our business negatively," said a representative of a Warsaw-based travel agency that specializes in organizing trips to China. "Of the four trips that were scheduled to go to China over the coming long weekend, all were cancelled although the reservations were made in January."
The travel agency representative said that although the company's management has quickly designated new dates for the trips in late spring, she did not believe that it was likely that the tourists would be interested in visiting China at all.
"We used to send up to 10 organized trips during the high season from March to November in previous years, but now there is no interest at all - maybe one phone call a day," she said. "Looking at the airlines we cooperate with, one can also see that they are suffering."
Pekka Hiltunen, sales director for eastern and central Europe at Finnair, which transports a significant bulk of Polish travelers to Asia, says that the airline's Asian flights sales have been greatly affected by the news of SARS.
"The health ministry's announcement that it is better not to travel at the moment had the biggest impact on our sales and particularly the long weekend sales," he said. "In April alone some 100 reservations were cancelled."
Leisure travelers form the core of Finnair's Polish operations, and Hiltunen says that this sector has been hit the hardest by SARS alerts. He believes that business could pick up around summertime, but in the meantime Finnair has cut its number of flights to Beijing "due to the SARS disease, which has brought down the demand for flights to China." Finnair flight attendants wear masks during flights between Bangkok and Hong Kong.
Taking precautions
National air carrier LOT is understandably less shaken by SARS, as it has not offered direct flights to Asia for several years. It does, however, fly regularly to Canada, where the most SARS cases outside Asia have been registered.
"We have introduced precautions on all our flights in that our onboard first-aid kits have been equipped with face masks and gloves," said Andrzej Kozłowski, a LOT spokesman. "Theoretically, the threat is just as great on a European flight as on a transcontinental flight."
Although LOT's staff members have not been asked to the wear face masks or gloves yet, they have already gone through SARS symptoms-recognition training.
"We cannot move ahead of events, but we do consult and monitor the situation regularly," said Kozłowski, who added that the flagship carrier has not registered a decrease in sales on account of the epidemic. "We have not noticed a decrease of interest in our flights in the last three months; neither SARS nor the Iraqi conflict seem to have affected our passenger numbers."
Official warnings
The foreign ministry has issued official warnings against traveling to Thailand, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and Vietnam. According to Bogusław Majewski, the ministry spokesman, the ministry recommends such action until the growing numbers of SARS patients have been stabilized, the source of the disease is located and there has been a guarantee that no new SARS cases will occur.
"Although we act according to WHO specifications, we also look at the most popular destinations in terms of Polish visits," Majewski said, adding that the ministry is currently considering including Toronto in its SARS travel alert.
LOT's Kozłowski declined to comment on the possible decision to name Canada as a dangerous destination, adding that as of yet it is one of the airline's most popular connections.
Yet, Elżbieta Marciszewska believes that if the SARS epidemic continues much longer, no airline operator will escape unscathed.
"Even in the short term SARS will reflect on LOT because it offers flights to Canada, but also many passengers pass through Warsaw on the way to their Asian destinations," she said. "In terms of flights to Canada, with the announcements and leaflets handed out to passengers on board, the commotion is well justified."
Meanwhile the LOT website remains blissfully free of any SARS-related information and does not state any facts about the disease or possible precautions.
With no cases of SARS officially reported here yet, the country's Chief Sanitary Inspectorate does not believe the threat of the epidemic in the country is serious at the moment. However, it has undertaken a series of measures in case the virus should strike.
The agency has already designated consultants whose task it will be to supervise the ill and try to prevent the spread of an epidemic, while hospitals and airports have prepared special isolation rooms for SARS patients. Although passengers returning from southeast Asia are not given mandatory checkups as in Asia, they are handed leaflets with information about SARS symptoms and hospital addresses. According to WHO instructions, airline and airport ground personnel have also been informed about the disease and are obliged to isolate ill travelers from other passengers.
"Without observing the symptoms we cannot detain a passenger," said Edyta Mikołajczyk, spokeswoman of the Polish Airports Authority. "That is why the airline crew has to cooperate with airport staff and inform us of any potential SARS cases on board. We do not have the right to force people to undergo obligatory medical checks, and at the moment we do not want to induce panic, so we have been monitoring passengers discreetly and effectively."
Mikołajczyk said that the Okęcie airport staff had been asked to be more aware of the problem and to remain vigilant. In case of a reported incoming SARS case, airport authorities would seal off the plane and move the ill passenger to the isolation room while the rest of the passengers would be placed in quarantine.
"Then we would wait until the arrival of the coordinating doctor who would supervise any further actions, such as moving the passengers to a hospital," Mikołajczyk said, adding that during the first days of the SARS alerts a young couple returning from Thailand visited the airport's doctor after hearing about the epidemic, though no other passengers have reported feeling ill. At the moment, the passport control desks at the airport distribute leaflets to passengers who are returning from southeast Asia.
