Cancellation of booked trips

[Indah]

Not that you were asking me... but yes..I do expect everything to be pretty much back to normal by next year. That doesn’t mean I think all the same operations will be in business or the airlines will all necessarily have the same design on the tail and wings, but there will be flights and there will be dive boats and there will be scuba operations.

I think some operations will not survive. Namely the ones who were financially weaker going into this or the ones that were not effectively managed or were very short sighted and did not offer reasonable flexibility to booked divers for reschedules. I’m not sure their reputation will recover enough for them to win the new business they will need during and after the recovery. Divers are a loyal bunch who do their research and they will flock to the operations who were flexible. There is now concrete evidence of the operations who claim to be all about customer service and professionalism etc, but when the **** hit the fan they all shrugged and said ‘not our problem, go and get a refund from insurance’ ..I think they will really struggle to win back trust from divers.

airlines may go bankrupt, but someone else will buy those planes and reactivate those routes quicker than you think.

Cozumel/cancun floated the idea of opening on June 1st, Delta airlines announced they would fly the route from June 1st and several people said they were wasting their time as no one would go, then 72 hours later they had to close the bookings for June as they had far more passengers booking than they had expected...with no vaccine in sight..

already in Canada/UK/USA there are mass gatherings and people completely ignoring lockdown any opportunity they can get...

Thanks, I indeed wondered what visitors of this forum think about this. By the way, we offer rescheduling without a time limit. But I can imagine that it will take some time before people want to share a plane for 14 or more hours with others again. The domestic flight here in Indonesia are of course not that long, but with much less personal space and worse air quality. Keeping a distance at a live aboard will be a challenge in a different way again. But I hope you are right. That people are so eager to travel again that they accept to have a bit less comfort, higher costs and bit more risk. The risks will probably be much less than driving a motorbike at Bali, try the local alcohol or sit in a room full of smokers.

 

[Dan]

Not that you were asking me... but yes..I do expect everything to be pretty much back to normal by next year. That doesn’t mean I think all the same operations will be in business or the airlines will all necessarily have the same design on the tail and wings, but there will be flights and there will be dive boats and there will be scuba operations.

I think some operations will not survive. Namely the ones who were financially weaker going into this or the ones that were not effectively managed or were very short sighted and did not offer reasonable flexibility to booked divers for reschedules. I’m not sure their reputation will recover enough for them to win the new business they will need during and after the recovery. Divers are a loyal bunch who do their research and they will flock to the operations who were flexible. There is now concrete evidence of the operations who claim to be all about customer service and professionalism etc, but when the **** hit the fan they all shrugged and said ‘not our problem, go and get a refund from insurance’ ..I think they will really struggle to win back trust from divers.

airlines may go bankrupt, but someone else will buy those planes and reactivate those routes quicker than you think.

Cozumel/cancun floated the idea of opening on June 1st, Delta airlines announced they would fly the route from June 1st and several people said they were wasting their time as no one would go, then 72 hours later they had to close the bookings for June as they had far more passengers booking than they had expected...with no vaccine in sight..

already in Canada/UK/USA there are mass gatherings and people completely ignoring lockdown any opportunity they can get...so I expect it will go one of two ways. Either back to or very close to back to normal or mass human extinction.
I’m probably fine with either at this point..:

I agree with your accessment. I may even go diving as early as July. I still have a liveaboard trip to Guadalupe, Mexico with Nautilus Belle Amie in late July that I have not reschedule.

Also, there is talk about herd immunity that sounds like a good news:

 

[Indah]

I agree with your accessment. I may even go diving as early as July. I still have a liveaboard trip to Guadalupe, Mexico with Nautilus Belle Amie in late July that I have not reschedule.

Also, there is talk about herd immunity that sounds like a good news:

I do not want to rain on your parade. But Herd Immunity is still a very long way to go. Especially without a good vaccine. And looking at the numbers, the pandemic in Mexico is just starting. I so much hope I am wrong.

 

[Diver Rick]

Do you expect that travelling will be back to normal June 2021? .....

I have no idea. We had to re-book for June 2021 to get our credits with Garuda Air. And who knows if the live aboard is there in 13 months. However at this point, no choice but to hope. My gut feeling is that if travel is still a no go because of the pandemic, the offers will be renewed and we'll go through the exercise again!

For now, hoping for the best.

 

[SeaWarden]

Do you expect that travelling will be back to normal June 2021? I mean, would you come to Indonesia when the people would not have a vaccine yet. I really wonder how many live aboards will be still in business if they would not have guests for a year or more. Actually, the same is true for the resorts. I cannot even imagine what will happen to domestic flights.

Without customers, boats would have to still clean every year, costing around $10k-20k to haul up because wooden boats .. and water require maintenance.. and there is crew cost of $1-2k a month..