Which airlines will soar after the pandemic?

, with its lockdowns and travel bans, has clobbered the world’s airlines. Revenues per passenger-kilometre, the industry’s common measure of performance, plummeted by 66% in 2020, compared with 2019. The International Air Transport Association (), a trade body, expects them to remain 57% below pre-pandemic levels this year. Although the world’s listed airlines have collectively just about recovered from the $200bn covid-induced stockmarket rout (see chart 1), forecasters reckon that air travel will take until 2024 to return to 2019 levels. The companies’ total annual losses may hit $48bn in 2021, on top of $126bn in 2020. Many have been torching cash as fast as their aeroplanes burn jet fuel. Plenty survived only thanks to government bail-outs.