The aviation industry you could say is… crashing. The coronavirus is having a massive impact on flying. While the impact may be overlooked, the aviation industry is having turbulent times. China’s busiest airports have seen air traffic decrease as much as 80%, a giant impact to a colossal aviation hub globally and to the region. China is one of the fastest growing aviation markets, doubling the number of passengers traveling through in 10 years. Simply put, the Chinese aviation market is gigantic, and has a vital source of money for airlines. Due to the COVID-19, some of the world’s biggest airlines are starting to cancel flights to China, Italy, Iran, South Korea, and Japan. The IATA reports that the Asia/Pacific market is expected to lose 27.8 billion dollars because of all this. Many other countries are under certain travel precautions. You can check all of them here. These cancellations have a huge impact on revenue for the airlines, destinations, but also workers. Emirates Airline, one of the world’s most recognizable airlines, has told workers to take a month of unpaid leave. El Al, Israel’s flag carrier, has stated they might have to lay off a sixth of their workforce to compensate for the lost money in the tourism and aviation industry.

Expect the US economy to struggle even more because of all this. With less tourism from countries like China, the US economy is going to be hit by all the loss of revenue gained from the tourism industry. With our ever so connected globe, this inherently creates a slow in trade as well. Chinese trade makes up 12.4$ of global trade, making it a vital component of the global economy. Certain Chinese exports are most likely to arrive in slow numbers, if they are even exported. There may be one positive of all of this though; cheap flight tickets (if you’re willing to risk it).