Gregory Polek has spent his entire career in aviation journalism with AIN, starting as a proofreader and assistant to then-managing editor Mary Mahoney in 1995 after serving an internship with&nbsp;New Jersey Monthly&nbsp;magazine and completing his B.A. degree in English/Writing at New Jersey’s William Paterson College. By 1997 Polek accepted a position as an associate editor, covering the regional airline beat for&nbsp;Aviation International News&nbsp;in place of retiring industry veteran Don Anderson. The assignment took Polek across North America and Europe to profile regional airlines varying in size and mission from the likes of floatplane operators Kenmore Air and Chalk’s Ocean Airways to regional jet operators such as SkyWest and American Eagle. Today, in his dual role as Air Transport Editor and International Airshow Editor, Polek writes, edits, and manages AIN’s commercial aviation content while overseeing each of the company’s daily international air show publications in Paris, Farnborough, Singapore, and Dubai. Most recently Polek has assumed oversight of daily coverage of the Helicopter Association International’s annual Heli-Expo convention.

Senior Editor

Gregory Polek

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) on Wednesday issued an upbeat assessment of statistics that show an increase of flight totals of 30 percent from a low point on April 21 to May 27. The uptick followed a 94-percent plunge in revenue passenger kilometers (RPKs) during April compared with the same month a year earlier, as Covid-19-related travel restrictions virtually shut down domestic and international air travel. The figures mark a rate of decline never seen in the history of IATA’s traffic analyses, which dates back to 1990.

 


The encouraging figures from May involve primarily domestic operations and represent a hike from a low base (5.7 percent of 2019 demand). While IATA called the increase not significant in relation to the global dimension of the air transport industry, it does suggest that the industry has seen the bottom of the crisis, provided a spike in Covid-19 cases do not reoccur. &nbsp;

 


“April was a disaster for aviation as air travel almost entirely stopped,” said IATA director general Alexandre de Juniac. “But April may also represent the nadir of the crisis. Flight numbers are increasing. Countries are beginning to lift mobility restrictions. And business confidence is showing improvement in key markets such as China, Germany, and the U.S. These are positive signs as we start to rebuild the industry from a standstill. The initial green shoots will take time—possibly years—to mature.”

 


IATA calculated that by the first week of April, governments in 75 percent of the markets tracked completely banned entry, while another 19 percent limited travel restrictions or imposed compulsory quarantine requirements for international arrivals. Data from late May show that flight levels in South Korea, China, and Vietnam have risen to a point now that equates to just a 22&nbsp;to 28 percent decline from a year earlier. Searches for air travel on Google increased 25 percent by the end of May compared with the April low, added IATA, although the figure reflects a 60 percent drop from the number of searches at the start of the year.

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News and issues relating to the aerospace industry that are related to the science, engineering and business of flight in space involving civil, industrial and military applications, and similar topics related to flight in the atmosphere of the Earth that are not covered more directly by other AINonline subject channels. In other words, both astronautical and aeronautical subjects, except for those aeronautical topics that are specifically covered elsewhere on this website.

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