The fight for the eradication of CoVid-19 requires a complete shutdown of the commercial air transport sector for an unspecified period of time.

The WHO, which deals with health, does not have a plan to stop air transport in the event of a pandemic, as we have seen. The WTO, which deals with trade, is more concerned with ensuring free and fair competition than with stopping air transport.

The problem is that as long as airplanes fly, even at one-tenth of their capacity, they carry the virus along with travelers. And at 10% of their capacity, they will all go bankrupt. We are on the verge of the worst of the worst: the collapse of the industry and the extension of the pandemic.

An airline is personnel, flying on planes that are being written off, burning kerosene, operating slots at airports.

If all countries simultaneously commit themselves to paying for staff (national short-time working schemes or equivalent), if loan maturities are postponed by the number of months it will take, if fuel costs are eliminated, and if national authorities pay for airport staff (often public or para-public entities) by freezing the conditions for allocating slots, then it is possible to save aviation and stop this form of pandemic spread.

This does not prevent ordinary air freight, repatriation operations or the transport of medical equipment as and when needed. Care must also be taken not to forget the situation of the most fragile countries and to plan to involve the support of the World Bank to that effect.

To this end, the WHO and the WTO must be persuaded to issue a joint declaration calling on states to act in this way.

The fate of all of us depends on it.