Airlines Pivot to Cargo During Pandemic
Joann Muller,
Passenger airlines devastated by the decline in air travel during the pandemic are making up some of their lost revenue by strapping cargo into passenger seats and overhead bins of planes that would otherwise be grounded.
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Background: Passenger airlines have always carried commercial cargo — along with luggage and occasional pets — inside the belly holds of their planes. But when passenger traffic collapsed in early March, that airfreight capacity disappeared.
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“What COVID-19 caused was a huge backlog of shipments because the world stood still for awhile,” Aditi Mehta, whose company, PROS, provides revenue management tools for airlines, tells Axios.