Sustainability in the Aviation Industry in the Post-COVID-19 Era

Introduction

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has had a devastating impact on the aviation industry globally as nearly all air travel came to a halt in late March and April 2020. Although the COVID-19 pandemic affected the airline industry more than any other aviation subsector, the industry was not doing especially well before the outbreak. The epidemic inflicted financial havoc throughout the aviation value chain, particularly among carriers (Bouwer et al., 2022). Except for freight forwarders and cargo airlines, who benefitted from an increase in demand for air cargo, every subsector recorded enormous losses in 2020. Even formerly dependable value generators, such as airports and factories, were not immune to the economic impact of the epidemic. The Russian-Ukraine crisis and the relevant sanctions will further increase complexity and operating costs. Global mobility is the norm in today's increasingly interconnected society (Bouwer, Saxon, and Tufft, 2022). However, huge global shocks will likely increase in frequency and when the global aviation sector is rebuilt, sustainability and adaptability must be two of the most important things to think about.

The usage phase dominates the whole life cycle impact in the aviation industry; consequently, component weight dictates environmental impact and costs. As a result, the effect attributable to material production and component manufacture has a tiny relative contribution to the entire life cycle impact of a material or component. This fact hinders the use of recycled components for closed-loop aircraft applications, particularly high-performance ones (Markatos and Pantelakis, 2022).

Since the beginning, aviation has had to deal with the same problems: provincial boundaries and binders, linked geographical obstacles, split airspace, expensive capital needs, and making sure planes are safe to fly. After surviving multiple waves of recurring COVID-19 pandemic, airlines are preparing for any such instances. The Russian-Ukraine crisis and the relevant sanctions will further increase complexity and operating costs. Airlines also face an attack from another direction in rising jet fuel prices. Global economic uncertainties, uncertain oil demand, and fluctuating oil production rates were driving oil prices in 2021. The Russian invasion has inflated this value even further. As per Frost & Sullivan’s analysis fuel costs are the highest contributor to the operating expenditure of an airline (~30% of operating expenditure), and they have increased by almost 89% in the last three and a half years as per Energy Information Administration (Abraham, 2022). Together, these problems have made it very hard and risky to be in the aviation business (Singh et al., 2022).

Professionals in the aviation industry have always been interested in sustainability, but it seems to be becoming an even bigger concern for decision-makers as they try to restructure their business operations during the current renaissance of the industry (Connected Aviation Industry, 2021). A clear understanding of stakeholder roles is crucial though sometimes neglected part of aviation sustainability efforts (Singh et al., 2022). In addition, Song, Solaem, and Han's (2020) study stated that further research is necessary on the aviation industry's sustainability from the comparative advantage viewpoint and the policy direction perspective. The study done by Suk and Kim (2021) recommended that observing sustainability indicators and best practices from the perspective of post-pandemic government policy designs would be an interesting research topic. Considering these research directions in the field of aviation sustainability, the present study is carried out with the following objectives:

Objective 1: To understand the sustainability issues and measures adopted by aviation industry post covid scenario

Objective 2: To analyze the applicability of triple bottom line measures adopted by aviation industry