据油价网2020年5月19日休斯顿报道，疫情席卷了整个航空业，颠覆了对未来几年的机队、航线和乘客人数的预测。在这个旅行受限、封国锁城、社交疏远和只在网上举行商务会议的不寻常时期，商业航空旅行和旅游业是受打击最严重的行业。

航空公司和飞机制造商将面临数年的亏损和成本削减，直到航空旅行数量恢复到危机前的水平。在航空业明显低迷的这几年里，航空煤油的需求预计将是需求恢复到2019年水平的最后一种石油产品。

分析人士说，虽然道路交通的石油需求已经显示出复苏的迹象，因为人们更喜欢开车上下班，而不是乘坐公共交通工具，但对航空煤油的需求可能需要更长的时间，可能需要数年时间才能恢复。

航空业已发生重大变化

《福布斯》资深撰稿人泰德·里德说，疫情已经给商业运作方式带来了重大变化。

自从各国采取措施限制入境旅行以平抑感染曲线以来，航空公司的客流量急剧下降。例如，根据美国运输安全管理局(TSA)的统计数据，在刚刚过去的这个周日，美国机场安检处的总旅客吞吐量仅为25.3807万人，而去年同一天通过安检的旅客吞吐量为262.0276万人。换句话说，美国5月中旬的乘机人数还不到去年美国机场正常日客流量的10%。

当然，航空公司感到了压力，而飞机制造商同样也感到了压力。尽管美国航空公司有义务至少在9月底前不裁员，以此作为获得美国补贴的条件，但他们警告称，裁员将在9月底之后发生。

例如，达美航空公司首席执行官艾德?巴斯蒂安在4月份举行的公司第一季度财报电话会议上表示，该公司有3.7万名员工(占员工总数的三分之一以上)选择了自愿无薪休假，休假时间从30天到一年不等。

巴斯蒂安补充道，达美航空公司3月每日现金消耗为1亿美元，预计5月每日现金消耗为5000万美元。

在美国以外的地区，航空公司已经开始裁员。英国航空公司的所有者IAG在5月初曾警告称，该公司可能会裁员多达1.2万名员工。欧洲最大的廉价航空公司瑞安航空公司正在协商裁员3000人，主要是飞行员和空乘人员。瑞安航空公司预计，今年的载客量将达到最初预期的一半。据彭博新闻社报道，阿联酋航空公司正在考虑裁员3万人。

各种规模的航空公司现在都必须弄清楚，除了今年黯淡的前景外，如何在航班上保持社交距离和遮盖面部。

飞机制造商也深受其害

乘客人数大幅减少，复苏时间表高度不确定，影响了航空公司的机队轮换、退休和新机购买，影响了波音、空客和通用航空等飞机制造商和供应商，这些公司也在裁员。

波音公司已经采取行动，通过自愿裁员(VLO)、自然离职和必要的非自愿裁员相结合，将员工数量减少大约10- 15%。这意味着波音将裁员1.5 - 1.6万人，“因疫情也对我们的业务造成了沉重打击，”波音公司总裁兼首席执行官戴夫·卡尔霍恩在4月底致员工的信中如是说。

复苏需要数年时间，威胁航煤需求

管理人士和分析师表示，与公路运输业不同，航空运输业将在未来数年受到疫情的冲击。因此，航空煤油需求——受经济衰退打击最严重的燃料——将以最慢的速度恢复。

达美航空公司的巴斯蒂安在公司财报电话会议上表示，“鉴于疫情大流行的综合影响以及相关金融因素对全球经济的影响，我们认为可能需要长达3年的时间才能看到全球航煤需求的持续复苏。”

高盛公司表示，尽管全球石油需求将随着v型复苏而反弹，但航空煤油需求将继续低迷至少两年，原因是商务旅行大幅减少。

EIA的统计数据显示，在5月8日结束的那周里，美国的汽油平均日需求量为739.8万桶，仍远远低于去年同期的914.8万桶，但比两周前的586万桶/天有了明显改善,。

另一方面，雷斯塔能源公司的统计数据显示，今年全球航空煤油需求将减少33.6%，或至少减少240万桶/天，而去年的需求为720万桶/天。明年，航空煤油需求将无法回到危机前的水平，预计平均为每天690万桶。

据伍德麦肯兹称，航空煤油需求最早也要到2022年才能恢复到2019年的水平。

旅行限制和禁飞会影响对航空业未来的短期预测，但生活方式和旅行行为的持续改变可能会永远颠覆航空旅行业务及其对航空煤油的需求。

李峻 编译自 油价网

原文如下：

Jet Fuel Demand Will Take Years To Recover

The coronavirus pandemic swept across the airline industry, upending fleet, route, and passenger number predictions for years to come. Commercial air travel, alongside tourism, is the worst-hit business in these unusual times of restricted travel, lockdowns, social distancing, and online-only business conferences.

Airlines and aircraft manufacturers face a few years of losses and cost cuts before air travel numbers return to pre-crisis levels. In these several years of a marked downturn for the industry, demand for jet fuel is expected to be the last oil product to see demand recover to levels from 2019.

While oil demand for road transportation already shows signs of recovery as people prefer commuting with their own cars rather than using public transport, demand for jet fuel will probably take much longer—possibly years—to recover, analysts say.

The Airline Business Has Already Changed

The COVID-19 pandemic has already brought significant changes to the way the business operates, according to Forbes Senior Contributor Ted Reed.

Passenger traffic on airlines has dropped off a cliff since countries moved to restrict inbound travel in an effort to flatten the curve of infections. In the United States, for example, total traveler throughput at security was just 253,807 this past Sunday, compared to 2,620,276 passengers who cleared security at airports on the same day last year, according to the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). In other words, the passenger numbers in mid-May were less than 10 percent of the typical day at U.S. airports last year.

The airlines, of course, are feeling the pinch, and so are aircraft manufacturers. While U.S. airlines have an obligation not to lay off staff at least until end-September as a condition to receive U.S. grants, they are warning that layoffs will be coming after that.

“October 1st is likely to emerge as one of the darkest days in history for airline labor,” JPMorgan Chase said earlier this month, as carried by Reuters.

At Delta Air Lines, for example, 37,000 employees, more than one-third of the workforce, have elected to take voluntary unpaid leaves ranging from 30 days to one year, CEO Ed Bastian said on the earnings call in April.

Delta was burning cash at a rate of $100 million per day in March, and expected that cash-burn rate at $50 million a day in May, Bastian added.

Outside the United States, airlines are already taking an ax to payroll numbers. IAG, the owner of British Airways, warned in early May that it is likely that there would be redundancies of up to 12,000 British Airways’ employees. Europe’s biggest budget carrier, Ryanair, is negotiating 3,000 job cuts, mainly pilots and cabin crew, and expects to carry this year half the number of passengers compared to initial expectations. Emirates is reportedly weighing 30,000 job cuts, according to Bloomberg News.

Airlines of all sizes now have to figure out how social distancing and face-coverings on flights would work apart from the gloomy outlooks for this year.

Aircraft Manufacturers Also Suffer

Significantly reduced passenger numbers and a highly uncertain recovery timeline impacts airlines’ fleet rotation, retirement, and new buys, affecting manufacturers and suppliers such as Boeing, Airbus, and GE Aviation, which are also cutting jobs.

Boeing has taken action to lower employee numbers by around 10-15 percent through a combination of voluntary layoffs (VLO), natural turnover, and involuntary layoffs as necessary. This means that Boeing will cut 15,000-16,000 jobs, as “the pandemic is also delivering a body blow to our business,” Boeing President and CEO Dave Calhoun said in a letter to employees at the end of April.

Recovery To Take Years, Threatening Jet Fuel Demand

Unlike in road transportation, where recovery is gaining momentum with eased lockdowns and more U.S. states and major economies opening up, airline transportation will suffer for years to come, executives and analysts say. As a consequence, jet fuel demand—the fuel worst hit by the slump—will recover at the slowest rate.

“Given the combined effects of the pandemic and associated financial impact on the global economy, we believe that it could be up to three years before we see a sustainable recovery,” Delta’s Bastian said on the earnings call.

While global oil demand is set to rebound with a V-shaped recovery, demand for jet fuel will continue to languish for at least another two years, cut by significantly reduced business travel, Goldman Sachs says.

Gasoline demand in the U.S. stood at 7.398 million bpd for the week to May 8, and although this was still below the 9.148-million bpd demand for the same week last year, the number was a clear improvement from the 5.86-million-bpd demand just two weeks prior, EIA data shows.

Global jet fuel demand, on the other hand, will drop by 33.6 percent this year, or by at least 2.4 million bpd from last year’s demand of 7.2 million bpd, according to Rystad Energy. Next year, jet fuel demand will not have returned to the pre-crisis levels and is expected to average 6.9 million bpd.

According to Wood Mackenzie, jet fuel demand is not expected to regain the 2019 level until 2022 at the earliest.

Travel restrictions and lockdowns impact near-term projections for the airline industry's future, but a lasting change in lifestyles and travel behavior could upend the air travel business and its demand for fuel forever.