Despite the sharp reduction in flying during 2020 because of travel restrictions related to the Covid-19 pandemic, fatal losses for the last 12 months were just as high as in some recent years. Globally there were 12 fatal airline accidents in 2020, resulting in the deaths of 332 passengers and crew. This compares with 22 fatal accidents and 297 fatalities in 2019 when commercial airline activity was at a normal level – which means four or five times the number of flights that took place in 2020. The previous safest year for flying was in 2015, when there were nine fatal accidents and 176 fatalities. Among the four jet fatal accidents, three were the result of poorly-planned and badly-executed approaches in serviceable aircraft in conditions that should not have been a problem for the crews. These involved a Pegasus Airlines Boeing 737-800 at Istanbul in February, a Pakistan International Airlines Airbus A320 at Karachi in May, and an Air India Express Boeing 737-800 at Kozhikode in August. There were 121 passengers and crew fatalities in these accidents. But there is another unusual factor that sets 2020 apart: accidental shootdowns – in the plural. The worst accident of 2020 involved the shootdown of a Ukraine International Airlines Boeing 737-800 on January. The aircraft was climbing out of Tehran on a scheduled service to Kiev, when it was misidentified as hostile by Iranian military, who fired two missiles at it, killing all 176 people on board. Another casualty of misidentification was an African Express Airways Embraer Brasilia operating a medical relief charter flight into Bardale, Somalia. It was shot down, ironically, by a peacekeeping unit. In both cases, effective communication between air traffic control and the military could have prevented the fatal mistakes. The politically unstable conditions in which both events took place are likely to continue, and not only in the Middle East and Africa. Since shootdowns, accidental or not, are killers, airlines need to approach the decision whether or not to continue operating to, or through, a conflict zone as if it were a traditional safety threat.

BOC Aviation has kicked off the new year with a heads-up to investors and analysts that its net profit for 2020 could be at least 25% down on the year prior. In a profit warning issued today to the Hong Kong stock exchange, the Singapore-based lessor says it expects net profit after tax to be 25-30% lower than in 2019, in which it made a net profit of $702 million, up 13% on 2018. BOC Aviation said in the 4 January exchange filing that it expects to incur provisions for "doubtful debts and impairment charges" for the year ended 31 December 2020, noting the "material adverse impact" of the Covid-19 pandemic and its related travel restrictions on its customers. In 2020, many lessors were hit with high volumes of rental deferral requests from their airline customers whose operations were affected by the pandemic. In the first six months of 2020, BOC Aviation's profits remained steady. It registered a small year-on-year increase in its profits during that period, although its cash collection rate fell to the lowest level in more than a decade.

The government of Canada has imposed additional travel restrictions for all inbound air passengers in a further effort to stop the spread of the highly contagious coronavirus. The country’s minister of intergovernmental affairs Dominic Leblanc says on 30 December that Canada will soon require all arriving passengers to present a negative polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test result that is less than 72h old. This is in addition to the mandatory 14-day quarantine for inbound travellers which the country has maintained for much of this year. “Canada will quickly implement the requirement for all arriving passengers to have a negative PCR covid test three days before arriving in Canada,” Leblanc says. The requirement will go into effect “in the next few days”, he adds. The country’s minister of public safety and emergency preparedness, Bill Blair, says that while the constitution guarantees Canadians the right to move about freely, the government continues to “strongly advise against all discretionary travel”. “This is not an alternative to quarantine,” says Blair. “It’s an additional layer of protection.” It will be up to the airlines to ensure that each passenger has a negative test result prior to boarding and travellers to Canada who are found disregarding the quarantine requirement can be subject to up to 6 months in jail or a fine of C$750,000 ($587,000), Blair adds. The new order could lead to a situation where a passenger arriving in Canada with proof that they are coronavirus-free will still be forced into 14 days of isolation despite that negative test. Montreal-based legacy carrier Air Canada, whose outgoing chief executive Calin Rovinescu has been a loud critic of the government’s strict travel restrictions, did not comment on the planned policy. Calgary-headquartered competitor WestJet says it is awaiting ”further clarity” from the government. As in other countries, Canada’s air transport industry has suffered as the pandemic continues to tear across the continent. Air Canada has protested what it sees as draconian and unnecessary measures that are hindering its return to normal business operations. Rovinescu repeatedly blasted the government for its lack of financial support for the sector, while at the same time it maintains the strict travel restrictions that have led to widespread job losses and continue to prevent the sector from any significant rebound. Last week Canadian regulators prohibited the operation of commercial passenger flights from the UK to Canada after the UK announced it had identified a new, faster-spreading strain of the Covid-19 virus. Since then, the virus has also been identified in Canada.