Global travel

How Coronavirus has affected Global Mobility

Will we start to see less air travel?

Will we start to see less air travel?

It began in China in December 2019, the first reported cases of a new virus.

What’s happened in the 3 months since then has impacted economies around the world and seen the World Health Organisation declare a global health emergency.

Everything from the automotive industry’s supply chain (https://www.bbc.com/news/business-51548976 ) through to international sport tournaments (https://www.bbc.com/sport/rugby-union/51800564 ) and most recently an entire country being put into lockdown (https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-whole-of-italy-put-on-lockdown-11954097 )

With the biggest daily occurrence of people spending time in close proximity being in the workplace, companies have had to assess their role in limiting workforce impact.

Those with staff travelling internationally have to deal with governments imposing travel shutdowns, border screenings and quarantines. Advice to people who have been in a country or area with confirmed cases is to self-isolate for between 7 and 21 days.

Holiday makers and travellers are finding themselves stuck, cruise ships are being denied docking requests and the entire vessel is being quarantined.

Airlines are suffering heavily, with the largest regional carrier in Europe, Flybe, being forced into administration by a combination of the coronavirus and a subsequent fall in demand. Lufthansa has grounded it’s A380 fleet and cancelled half of all flights.

What long-term impact this will have on the Global Mobility industry remains to be seen, but with the dramatic increase in businesses enforcing remote working, could we be seeing a shift towards technological solutions?

Terrorism: How to stay safe whilst travelling

Sadly, it would appear that we are still not safe from terrorism and global travel is still a risky business, thanks to the ongoing trend in attacks against civilian targets and locations. It doesn't look as though this is going to change anytime soon, does it?

So, how should business travellers react and what measures should companies sending their employees abroad take to mitigate the effects of any terrorist attack and ensure their staff remain as safe as possible?

Joseph Frederick, Head of Political Risk and Analysis at Anvil, makes the following suggestions: