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Ruwantissa Abeyratne

Air Transport
and Pandemic
Law
Legal, Regulatory, Ethical and Economic
Issues
Air Transport and Pandemic Law
Ruwantissa Abeyratne

Air Transport and Pandemic

Law
Legal, Regulatory, Ethical and Economic
Issues
Ruwantissa Abeyratne
Aviation Law and Policy
Aviation Strategies International
Montreal, QC, Canada

ISBN 978-3-030-80884-6 ISBN 978-3-030-80885-3 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-80885-3

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland
AG 2021
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Preface

In early January 2021, The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO)

released figures from January to end December 2020 to the effect that there had
been an overall reduction of 51% of seats offered by airlines and an overall reduction
of 2891 million passengers from 2019 and that there was a US$391 billion potential
loss of gross passenger operating revenues of airlines.1 In the same publication,
ICAO forecast that in the first half of 2021, there will be an overall reduction ranging
from 35% to 42% of seats offered by airlines as well as an overall reduction of 1013–
1239 million passengers and an approximate US$149–180 billion potential loss of
gross passenger operating revenues of airlines. In early 2021, The Word Travel and
Tourism Council (WTTC) recorded that more than 174 million travel and tourism
jobs were lost globally and global GDP lost more than $4.7 trillion from travel and
tourism in 2020.
Governments have so far supported the airlines with US$173 billion but for IATA
airlines have debts in excess of $651 billion and lost US$118.5 billion in 2020.
Early January 2021 also saw people starting to be vaccinated globally and health
guidelines being issued by The World Health Organization (WHO).2 All this was
happening in the wake of ICAO convening a high-level conference on aviation and
the pandemic in October 2021. This scenario necessitates consideration of the legal
nuances of measures being taken to revive air transport to its original status quo.
There is no such thing called “pandemic law”. At least, not in a general sense as in
environmental law, criminal law, or contract law. It is hoped that the discussions to
follow in this book will draw some parameters that may be identified as principles of

1
Effects of Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) on Civil Aviation: Economic Impact Analysis, Mon-
tréal, Canada, 7 January 2021, Air Transport Bureau.
2
The World Health Organization was established in 1948 as a specialized agency of the United
Nations serving as the directing and coordinating authority for international health matters and
public health. One of WHO’s constitutional functions is to provide objective and reliable informa-
tion and advice in the field of human health, a responsibility that it fulfils in part through its
extensive programme of publications.

v
vi Preface

pandemic law, along similar lines of the birth of environmental law. There was no
such thing as environmental law until the Stockholm Conference of 1972, which was
initiated to discuss the threat of acid rain. Until this point in time, public international
law was neither concerned with environmental protection nor with the interests of
the climate and the rapidity with which it could change for the worse due to our own
feckless insouciance. Either we were not aware of the dangers of our own actions or
there were other important things to worry about. Inevitably, we thought, as Nobel
Laureate Amartya Sen said, that nothing would happen if we interfered with the
environment as least as possible. But wittingly or unwittingly, we did interfere big,
with catastrophic consequences.
The same scenario could be seen being played out with the current pandemic.
Like environmental abuse, which now has far-reaching consequences politically,
economically, and socially, the pandemic, hitherto not in the radar of the interna-
tional community and forgotten as a global threat, since a global pandemic that was
last experienced a hundred years ago, has shown substantial effects adverse to
humanity, firstly to life itself but also to the economic and social well-being of the
entire international community. It has even threatened global security, as TIME of
18 May 2020 reported, that ISIS militants on May 1 carried out an attack on Iraqi
paramilitary forces killing 10. TIME said: “Amid the COVID 19 pandemic, the US
troop drawdown, and Iraq’s internal political crisis, experts say ISIS is exploiting
security gaps—and shifting its tactics from intimidation and assassinations to more
sophisticated techniques”. It is incontrovertible that we have reached the point where
we have to consider the legal nuances of the COVID-19 pandemic, as it has, unlike
other outbreaks such as SARS or H1N1, affected the entire world: all the Continents
including Antarctica; on 23 December 2020, the BBC reported that the virus had
spread among a scientific team conducting experiments in the Continent.
The UN’s Framework for the Immediate Socio-Economic Response to the
COVID 19 Crisis has warned that “The COVID-19 pandemic is far more than a
health crisis: it is affecting societies and economies at their core. While the impact of
the pandemic will vary from country to country, it will most likely increase poverty
and inequalities at a global scale, making achievement of SDGs (Sustainable Devel-
opment Goals) even more urgent”. This statement shows it is therefore incontrovert-
ible that there is a compelling need to seriously consider a global response that would
establish legal norms establishing State responsibility in the event of an initial
outbreak of a communicable disease, as well as the prudent and responsible man-
agement practices of an outbreak.
This book does not serve to suggest the usual Resolution of the United Nations
General Assembly as a panacea to the horrific threat the world faces which has
upended almost every aspect of human conduct and living. In 2018, we saw a
Resolution on Tuberculosis. The UN stated: “the General Assembly adopted two
resolutions containing political declarations on urgent global responses to tubercu-
losis and on accelerating efforts to address non-communicable diseases. By the terms
of the resolution ‘Political declaration of the high-level meeting of the General
Assembly on the fight against tuberculosis’ . . . the Assembly adopted the Declara-
tion ‘United to End Tuberculosis: An Urgent Global Response to a Global
Preface vii

Epidemic’, by which world leaders pledged to end the global tuberculosis epidemic
by 2030 and acknowledged that the disease disproportionately affects developing
countries”.
Resolutions and declarations are the results of political compromises and nothing
else. They merely languish in the hinterland of global rhetoric, to be used or not used
by countries at their behest.
With the COVID pandemic, the world would need more than just resolutions or
declarations or goals. We would need an instrument that could enforce accountabil-
ity on negligent countries, whether in the monitoring of sanitary conditions within
their territories or in disseminating news of a pandemic threat without delay. It is
inexcusable that these two elements are not covered in a binding and enforceable
legal document.
Such an instrument should not be the relegated to entering into force upon a
certain number of ratifications, nor should it be subject to applicability only to
countries which ratify the treaty. A multilateral treaty in this context should tran-
scend borders and proprietary rights in order that sickness, death, and inequality
caused by a global pandemic be obviated. Thomas Piketty says in his book Capital
in the Twenty First Century: “more generally, inequality today is strongly influenced
by the system of borders and national sovereignty, which determines the allocation
of social and political rights. This has given rise to intractable multidimensional
ideological conflicts over inequality, immigration and national identity. . .” Piketty is
right: borders and national sovereignty have amply demonstrated the miserable
failure of some countries in handling the pandemic crisis which has led to several
hundreds of thousands of deaths in addition to poverty and misery.
The sovereignty that is relevant in the carving of a global instrument against the
proliferation of communicable viruses should be based on, what Richard Haas, Chief
of the Foreign Relations Council called “sovereign responsibility”, which means that
sovereignty should not stop at borders but extend to helping countries and their
people who might suffer as a result of arbitrary and capricious decisions of leaders
taken under the shroud of national sovereignty. The most important characteristic of
a global treaty in this context must be the requirement to be recognized as an
instrument of customary law which is applicable to all members of the United
Nations, irrespective of ratification. In effect, such a treaty would be on par with
the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties of 1969 which applies globally
without exception.
In the final analysis, addressing the devastating effects of the COVID pandemic is
a matter of State responsibility. It is already an entrenched principle of international
law that territoriality can be overridden by extraterritorial measures by individual
countries on the principle of the “effects theory”. This theory goes to say that a
country has a legal right to legislate beyond its borders against a threat which would
have an adverse effect on its territory and people. Therefore, conceptually, countries
have a legal right to hold legally responsible other countries whose negligent actions
would adversely affect them, as it has happened with the current pandemic.
On 15 December 2020, as this book was being written, The Secretary General of
The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) issued a State Letter to all
viii Preface

ICAO member states which advised that the ICAO Council had decided on conven-
ing a High-level Conference on COVID-19 with the provisional theme of “One
Vision for Air Transport Sustainability beyond the Global Pandemic” that was
calculated to address COVID-19 related items under a single umbrella. The Confer-
ence, which was designed and planned to replace three other global conferences
planned by ICAO, was scheduled for October 2021. The main emphasis of the
Conference was to be on safety and facilitation.
Earlier, on 7 December 1944, ICAO designated the theme of international civil
aviation day as “Advancing Innovation for Global Aviation Development”. Each
year, 7 December is marked as “International Civil Aviation Day”. The only reason
one can think of for the choice of this particular day to be dedicated to international
civil aviation is that the Convention on International Civil Aviation (Chicago
Convention)—the “Bible” of international civil aviation—was signed at Chicago
on 7 December 1944. The Chicago Convention lay without legal effect for 4 months
until it reached the minimum number of 26 ratifications required from States for it to
go into effect. The Convention received the requisite 26th ratification on March
5, 1947, and entered into force on 4 April 1947, the same date that the International
Civil Aviation Organization—the specialized agency of the United Nations for
international civil aviation (ICAO)—came into being. Some argue, not without
justification—that this auspicious day celebrating international civil aviation should
be the 4th April when things actually started happening.
Be that as it may, it is interesting that this year in particular, when the world of air
transport has been upended by a virulent pandemic that has spread globally with the
help of air transport, that the theme for international civil aviation day has been
proclaimed as “Advancing Innovation for Global Aviation Development”. Here, the
keyword is “innovation”, which means finding a new way or product: or creating
new value and/or capturing value in a new way. One wonders whether, instead of
trying to create new value or a new product, “Reviving Air Transport” would have
been more relevant as a theme to an industry which desperately needs to be revived
to its status quo ante which was flourishing until the pandemic struck. Such a theme
would have also been consistent with the proposed High-level Conference planned
for October 2021.
What is badly needed is revival and, in ICAO’s own admission, seeking innova-
tion has always been an objective: “A commitment to innovation has always been at
the heart of aviation, and it has been instrumental to the continuous performance
improvements countries have realized, through ICAO, for aviation safety, security,
efficiency, and the economic and environmental sustainability of international
operations.
Innovation will also be at the heart of our recovery strategies and partnerships as
we build back better post-pandemic, establishing a renewed global network that is
greener and more resilient in the face of future pandemic threats, and more depend-
able in terms of the significant socio-economic benefits which air connectivity
delivers to modern societies”.
The second paragraph makes eminent sense with the word “recovery” and ICAO
must be commended for using this word. Furthermore, the ICAO Council has been
Preface ix

proactive with its Council Aviation Recovery Taskforce, which continues to encour-
age innovative and prudent measures to help countries respond to and ultimately
recover from COVID-19.
This notwithstanding, getting to greener and more resilient air transport vis a vis a
raging pandemic or even a potential spread of a virulent virus does not comport with
effective measures that should be taken immediately to nip things in the bud.
Resilience and green technology are admirable. However, the fault lies in the current
status quo of the Chicago Convention itself which must be addressed. The genesis of
fight against the spread of communicable diseases through air navigation lies in
Article 14 of the Chicago convention which carries all the legal legitimacy ascribed
to a multilateral treaty. The inherent defect is in the wording itself. A careful and
nuanced distinction could be made between the “middle of the road” approach in the
words of Article 14: to “Each contracting States agrees to take effective measures to
prevent the spread by means of air navigation. . .” The word “agrees” denotes mere
consent to do something that is suggested. Elsewhere in the Convention, for
instance, in Article 3 (c) it is stated that “No state aircraft of a contracting State
must fly over the territory of another State or land thereon without authorization by
special agreement or otherwise, and in accordance terms thereof”. While this is not
the only instance in the Convention that the word “must” is used, which reflects a
peremptory command, the absence of such mandate in Article 14 renders it destitute
of the compulsory effect needed to obligate States to take immediate action to advise
other States to take effective measures in precluding the spread of a communicable
disease through air transport.
Another weakness in Article 14 is somewhat semantic but nonetheless relevant to
this discussion. The reference to the spread of communicable diseases caused by air
navigation is meaningless. Communicable diseases are caused through air transport
and the carriage of persons from place to place. Air navigation broadly defined is the
science and technology of determining the position of an aircraft with respect to the
surface of the earth and accurately maintaining a desired course.
Taking these initial inconsistencies to ICAO, which derives its legitimacy from
Articles 43—by which the Chicago Convention establishes ICAO—and Article 44
which defines the aims and objectives of the Organization—Article 44 (d) which
says ICAO should strive to meet the needs of the people of the world for safe,
regular, efficient, and economical air transport (the word “safe” being the operative
word in this context) and the fact that the meaning and purpose of the 96 provisions
of the Convention and their implementation are embodied in ICAO’s aims and
objectives, one has to take a hard look at whether ICAO is both equipped and
empowered to achieve its aims and objectives.
The answer is both in the affirmative and negative as the discussion below shows.
In a general sense, by no means should ICAO be found reprehensible. However,
ICAO is able to agitate the world order by reason of its being a specialized agency of
the United Nations which, through its Charter, has empowered ICAO to act on its
behalf. This philosophy had its genesis, prior to the formation of the United Nations
in Article 64 of the Chicago Convention which provides that ICAO may, with
respect to air matters within its competence directly affecting world security, by
x Preface

vote of the Assembly, enter into appropriate arrangements with any general organi-
zation set up by the nations of the world to preserve peace.
One thing the ICAO Council could have done was to have been more vigilant.
When the COVID-19 spread was first made known to the world—an epidemic was
reported in the central China city of Wuhan in January 2020, 2 months before the
outbreak became a global health crisis—a vigilant ICAO sub-regional office located
in China could have alerted the ICAO headquarters in Montreal without delay as that
office knew, or ought to have known with earlier knowledge and experience
gathered from the 2003 SARS crisis, that the disease could spread rapidly through
air transport.
Although the primary responsibility of this sub-regional office is to support
improved airspace organization and management (AOM) to maximize Air Traffic
Management (ATM) performance across the Asia Pacific Region, that does not
mean that it should not keep its eyes open for any possible implications with regard
to provisions of the Chicago Convention. Furthermore, ICAO’s regional office in
Bangkok, the primary objective of which is to foster implementation by States of the
global ICAO Standards as well as organization’s Regional Air Navigation Plan, in
order to provide for the safety, security, and efficiency of the Asia and Pacific region
air transport network, had a distinct link to Article 14 of the Chicago Convention
which speaks of air navigation.
With this knowledge, ICAO could have communicated with China the need to
alert other States of the possible threat of a viral spread through air transport.
Article 54 (j) of the Chicago Convention has, as a mandatory function of the Council
of ICAO, the duty to report to contracting States any infraction of the Convention, as
well as any failure to carry out recommendations or determinations of the Council.
There is no evidence that this process was adhered to.
The above notwithstanding, and leaving aside the COVID-19 cataclysm for a
moment, it must be mentioned that 2021 presents a general aura of revival, as trends
go. On 17 September of 2019, the United Nations adopted Resolution 73/338 which
designated 2021 as the International Year of Peace and Trust. The Resolution
underscores that the International Year of Peace and Trust constitutes a means of
mobilizing the efforts of the international community to promote peace and trust
among nations based on inter alia, political dialogue, mutual understanding, and
cooperation in order to build sustainable peace, solidarity, and harmony. It calls
upon the international community to continue to promote peace and trust among
nations as a value that promotes sustainable development, peace and security, and
human rights.
Resolution 73/338 goes on to invite all Member States, organizations of the
United Nations system, other relevant international and regional organizations, and
civil society, including non-governmental organizations, individuals, and other
relevant stakeholders, to facilitate the observance of the International Year of
Peace and Trust, in an appropriate manner and to disseminate the advantages of
peace and trust, including through educational and public awareness-raising
activities.
Preface xi

The keywords here are “mobilizing the efforts of the international community”
and “disseminate the advantages of peace and trust, including through educational
and public awareness-raising activities”. To start with, we would have a new leader
of the free world. Zanny Minton Beddoes—Editor in Chief of The Economist writes:
“. . .rather than attack with unilateral tariffs, Mr. Biden’s team will focus on building
a multilateral coalition to counter China”. This is the mobilizing of the efforts of the
international community that Resolution 73/338 talks of. Beddoes goes on: “Expect
talk of a Transatlantic grand bargain, where America assuages European concerns
about tech giants, particularly the personal data they gather, and the tax they don’t
pay, in return for a joint approach towards Chinese tech companies. Expect talk of a
new global alliance, building Asian democracies into the Western coalition to
counter China—the basis, conceivably, of a new kind of American-led world order”.
This by no means implies any negativity or disingenuity on the part of the manner
in which China has grown, but rather reflects the ineptitude of the West to recognize
over the past few years the value of creating trust among allies to ensure equality of
opportunity to compete with the Asian giants, especially China. The reset button
calls upon the new President of the United States to deviate his concentration from
repairing “yesterdays world (as Beddoes puts it) and to focus on tomorrow’s world”.
This is the precise meaning and purpose of the United Nations Resolution.
There is no room for doubt that in the world of science and technology, the world
will surge ahead with its efforts in gene editing, quantum computing, and Blockchain
smart contracts. However, the reset button should enable the powers that be to apply
their focus on peace and trust in the deployment of their efforts. Tom Standage,
Editor of The Economist, lists as one goal to be achieved in 2021 patching up the
new world disorder: “How much will Joe Biden, newly installed in the White House,
be able to patch-up a crumbling rules-based international order? The Paris climate
deal and the Iran nuclear deal are obvious places to start. But the crumbling predates
Trump and will outlast his presidency”. The last statement is what the United
Nations Resolution seemingly wants to prove wrong.
Daniel Franklin, Diplomatic Editor of The Economist is more specific: “Who will
run the world in 2021? International institutions such as the United Nations have
been weakened by great-power rivalry. Russia will be a spoiler, not a leader. In
Europe, Boris Johnson will have his hands full with the aftermath of Brexit,
Germany’s Angela Merkel will leave the stage and France’s Emmanuel Macron
has limited means to pursue his grand ideas. China is the rising superpower, and an
increasingly assertive one, but not yet keen, let alone able, to take on the burdens of
world leadership. The question is whether America, under President Joe Biden, will
be prepared to step back into the role”. The International Year of Peace and Trust
brings to mind post World War II efforts of the Western World. The Bretton Woods
initiative; the unification of rules for commercial air transport; globalization of world
trade were all efforts to bring together a badly broken world and to make sense of a
new world order. Obviously, 2021 will not be a full turnaround. However, the
question remains as to whether the United States and its allies (those that are left)
take some cognizance of the fact that if a “reset” button could work 75 years ago, it
could work reasonably well to reverse the process aggravated by a virulent virus
xii Preface

which as Zanny Minton Beddoes says: “. . .has changed the trajectory of the three big
forces that are shaping the modern world”: globalization which has been truncated
(which was in the process of being badly damaged by populism in the world
anyway); geo-political rivalry; and inequality.
For the rest button to work, the international community (whatever that means)
has to consensually agree to what “peace” means. Former Secretary General of the
United Nations Ban Ki-Moon said in 2014: “We know that peace cannot be decreed
solely through treaties—it must be nurtured through the dignity, rights and capacities
of every man and woman. . .It is a way of being, of interacting with others, of living
on this planet. . . more than ever, it means living with others on the basis of tolerance,
respect and mutual understanding”. In aviation terms, the Preamble to the Chicago
Convention of 1944 talks of “friendship and understanding” among the people of the
world.
Whether we can ever achieve this lofty ideal is another matter.

Montreal, QC, Canada Ruwantissa Abeyratne

Contents

1 Prelude to Disaster . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1 Plague of Our Times . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 Pandemic Economics, Air Transport and the Shock Doctrine . . . . 3
1.3 Will Aviation Collapse? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.4 A Vaccine? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1.5 The Travel Bubble . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.6 Is Virtual Travel an Alternative to Air Travel? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1.7 Pandemic Free Skies? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
1.8 Disruptive Innovation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
1.8.1 Airline Food . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
1.8.2 No Destination Flights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
1.9 Will the Pandemic Drastically Change Megatrends? . . . . . . . . . . 21
1.10 Four Factors That Would Drive Pandemic Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
1.10.1 Tell the Truth to Those Who Rely on You to
Look After Them . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
1.10.2 Show Leadership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
1.10.3 Be United in Humanity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
1.10.4 Be Antifragile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
2 History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
2.1 The Beginning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
2.2 Social Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
2.3 Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
2.4 COVID-19 and the Unruly Airline Passenger . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
2.5 Should We Blame the World Health Organization? . . . . . . . . . . . 42
2.6 Social Morality and COVID-19 Spread . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
2.7 Lessons from COVID . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
2.8 Realities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
2.9 Psychology of the Pandemic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
2.10 A Post COVID World Order . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

xiii
xiv Contents

2.11 Air Cargo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

2.12 How the Virus Is Misleading Air Transport . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
2.13 Business Strategy in the Face of Uncertainty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
2.14 Way Forward for Air Transport . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
2.15 Deconstructing the Global Value Chain in Air Transport
During the Pandemic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
2.16 Flight Cancellations and Travel Insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
3 The Coronavirus and Air Transport: Some Implications for Trade
and Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
3.1.1 The Early Stages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
3.2 Guidelines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
3.2.1 EASA Guidelines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
3.2.2 IATA Guidelines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
3.2.3 CAAC Guidelines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
3.3 Liability Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
3.4 The Effects of COVID-19 on the Global Economy and Air
Transport . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
3.4.1 The Early Stages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
3.5 Regulatory and Legal Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
3.5.1 Regulatory Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
3.5.2 Legal Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
3.6 Concluding Remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
4 Continuing Air Transport Post Covid-19:
The Regulatory Response . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
4.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
4.2 The Chicago Convention and Its Annexes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
4.2.1 Prevention of Spread of Disease . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
4.2.2 War and Emergency Conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
4.3 Annexes to the Chicago Convention . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
4.3.1 Annex 6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
4.3.2 Annex 9 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
4.3.3 Annex 11 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
4.3.4 Annex 14 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
4.3.5 Emergency Planning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
4.4 The ICAO Response . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
4.5 The Need to Recalibrate the World Order . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
4.6 Concluding Remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
5 Training the Airport Manager in a Post Covid-19 World . . . . . . . . . 119
5.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
5.2 Training in the Digital Age . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
5.3 Management of Privacy vs. Health . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
5.4 Psychology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
Contents xv

5.5 The Ultimate Management Concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123

5.6 Legal and Regulatory Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
5.7 Liabilities of Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
5.8 Online Training . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
5.8.1 Future of Education After COVID-19 Pandemic . . . . . . . 130
6 Legal Aspects of Covid-19 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
6.1 State Responsibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
6.2 Air Carrier Liability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
6.2.1 General Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
7 Public Health and the Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
7.1 Risk Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
7.2 Health and Information Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198
8 Digital Health Certificates for Air Travel: Some Issues . . . . . . . . . . . 199
8.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
8.2 Some Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
8.2.1 Account Take Overs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
8.2.2 Specifications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
8.2.3 The Test of Reasonableness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206
8.3 Privacy and Cybersecurity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
8.3.1 United States . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
8.3.2 Europe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
8.4 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
9 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229

Appendix A . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
ICAO Resolution A35-12: Protection of the Health of Passengers
and Crews and Prevention of the Spread of Communicable Disease
Through International Travel (2004) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
Appendix B . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
ICAO Assembly Resolution A37-13: Prevention of Spread
of Communicable Disease Through Air Travel (2010) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
Appendix C . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235
ICAO Assembly Resolution A37-14: Non-chemical Disinsection
of the Aircraft Cabin and Flight Deck for International Flights . . . . . . . . 235
Appendix D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
ICAO Council Aviation Recovery Task Force (CART)
Recommendations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
CART Report: Recommendations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
Chapter 1
Prelude to Disaster

1.1 Plague of Our Times

Albert Camus starts his novel The Plague, which he started in 1941 and published in
1947, with a description of an “ugly” French Algerian town called Oran where
“. . .certainly nothing is commoner nowadays than to see people working from morn
till night and then proceeding to fritter away at card-tables, in cafes and in small-talk
what time is left for living at Oran” amidst “the violent extremes of temperature, the
exigencies of business, the uninspiring surroundings, the sudden nightfall, and the
very nature of its pleasures call for good health. An invalid feel out of it there. Think
what it must be for a dying man, trapped behind hundreds of walls all sizzling with
heat, while the whole population, sitting in cafes or hanging on the telephone, is
discussing shipments, bills of lading, discounts! It will then be obvious what
discomfort attends death, even modern death, when it waylays you under such
conditions in a dry place. . .”
Then one day—April 16th—the protagonist, Dr. Bernard Rieux, steps out of his
apartment and treads on something soft which turns out to be a dead rat. He kicks it
to the side nonchalantly and proceeds to his surgery, only to realise in a few minutes
that a dead rat on his landing was an unusual sight. More dead rats appear in the
following days, appearing to have spurted blood from their mouths.
After a few days, his charwoman tells him that several hundred dead rats had been
collected in the big factory where her husband worked. The townspeople are
awakened to an epidemic. Bernard Rieux reminisces: “everybody knows that pesti-
lences have a way of recurring in the world; yet somehow we find it hard to believe
in ones that crash down on our heads from a blue sky. There have been as many
plagues as wars in history; yet always plagues and wars take people equally by
surprise”. Camus posits: “A pestilence isn’t a thing made to man’s measure; there-
fore we tell ourselves that pestilence is a mere bogy of the mind, a bad dream that
will pass away. But it doesn’t always die and, from one bad dream to another, it is

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 1

R. Abeyratne, Air Transport and Pandemic Law,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-80885-3_1
2 1 Prelude to Disaster

men who pass away, and the humanists first of all, because they haven’t taken their
precautions”.
Camus, who was an atheist, brings to bear the indifference of a self serving world
to human suffering and the meaningless pursuit of ascribing to life a precise meaning
and purpose through consequentialism and materialistic values. The character of
Cottard in the novel, who has committed a crime and fears arrest, welcomes the
plague which offers him comfort that the rest of the town is sharing his state of fear
of death and punishment. The plagues serves many purposes, depending on the
subjective circumstances of individuals.
The people in Oran are incredulous—that the plague could hit them—they who
are enjoying their comfortable lives. This could only happen to others:, not to them.
But they die in their hundreds. After some months, the disease goes away, and
everything is forgotten. The gates of the city open and people proudly exclaim that
they have conquered the pestilence.
Camus’ message is both literal and metaphorical—that any disaster should not be
treated as an irritation but as a serious existential threat. Liesl Schillinger, who is
quoted in a literary Hub article titled What We Can Learn (and Should Unlearn)
From Albert Camus’s The Plague says: “he addresses any contagion that might
overtake any society; from a disease like cholera, the Spanish Influenza, AIDS,
SARS, or, yes, COVID-19; to a corrosive ideology, like Fascism, or Totalitarianism,
which can infect a whole population”.
Sun Tzu in his Art of War posits one must know oneself as much as one knows
one’s enemy. The problem is that, as Camus reflects in his novel, we do not seem to
know ourselves and our vulnerabilities and choose to ignore red flags not only in the
face of epidemics and disease but also when confronted with other existential threats.
Politically, grave and ominous threats that portend danger to the global community
are ignored as minor irritations that will go away. COVID—19 teaches us that we
need determination, self reliance and optimism in the face of hardship. We have to
believe despite all the evidence to the contrary, that we could restore a sense of
community to a world torn by conflict and that despite all personal tragedy, we have
a sense of control over our own destiny.
Finally, we must also realise the fragility and randomness of our own health and
life and teach ourselves a collective humility. Nassim Nicholas Taleb, the bestselling
author of The Black Swan, in his book Antifragile introduces the reader to the
interesting and well-reasoned concept called “Antifragile”. He states that any system
which depends on predictability and presumption is fragile and that “some things
benefit from shocks and they thrive and grow when exposed to volatility, random-
ness, disorder and stressors”. According to Taleb black swans (which as we all know
are a rarity) are large-scale unpredictable and irregular events which can either
devastate those that are fragile and dependent on a certain rigid stability or energize
risk takers and flexible persons into action.
This is a time when we must also be careful of exploitation. Naomi Klein in her
book The Shock Doctrine, The Rise of Disaster Capitalism (Alfred A. Knopf:
Canada, 2007) bases her thesis on the premise that people who are devastated by a
disaster look towards rebuilding what they lost whereas free market forces look for
1.2 Pandemic Economics, Air Transport and the Shock Doctrine 3

exactly the opposite—to start with a clean slate by exploiting the disaster to their
advantage. COVID-19 is a multi-dimensional plague facing us. This must not
happen.

1.2 Pandemic Economics, Air Transport and the Shock

Doctrine

It was Machiavelli who said that all injuries must be piled on top of each other at the
same time.
And it was Naomi Klein, a distinguished Canadian author who coined the term
“shock doctrine” in her book.1 This doctrine is based on the premise that people who
are devastated by a disaster and are profoundly disoriented—which Klein calls
“Shock Therapy”—look towards rebuilding what they lost whereas free market
forces look for exactly the opposite—to start with a clean slate by exploiting the
disaster to their advantage. Klein extends this doctrine to political leaders and cites
the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989 as having given the Chinese political
leaders the opportunity to convert much of China into a gigantic export zone. A
similar line of action is attributed to then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher of the
United Kingdom who is reported to have used the 1982 Falklands War to divert the
country’s attention so that she could quell the coal miners’ strike which was
happening at the same time.
The politicians cited above may be considered devious and perhaps even clever.
But can they also be perceived as self-serving? What about individuals and busi-
nesses that have been noticed exploiting a post conflict or post crisis? Examples cited
in Naomi Klein’s book are the critical phases of the war in Iraq, where Shell and BP
claimed the country’s vast oil resources; the outsourcing of the “war on terror”
immediately after the 9/11 attacks to Halliburton and Blackwater; and the auctioning
off of beaches that had great potential as tourist attractions to various tourist resorts
in Southeast Asia in the post Tsunami period of 2004–2005.
The shock doctrine helps people manipulate and exploit the public’s disorienta-
tion immediately after a catastrophe by introducing and establishing questionable
economic measures. Also called “disaster capitalism” this trend gives, according to
Milton Friedman of the famous Chicago School of Economics, an administration
6–9 months in which to achieve major changes, after which time the opportunity
may vanish without ever emerging again.
Of course, airlines are in the doldrums and are struggling to survive. They are
cutting down services. British Airways is grounding its 31 Boeing 747 “Jumbo” jets
(the largest 747 fleet among European countries) and pundits are saying that the
500 strong 747 fleet which served long thin routes might suffer the same fate.
Aviation pundits are prognosticating that long flights will be a thing of the past

1
The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, Knopf: Canada, 2007.
4 1 Prelude to Disaster

and the “hub and spoke” system where a hub attracted flights from all over and
distributed passengers so gathered to all corners of the world on large aircraft will be
a thing of the past. Also in the forecast is that business long haul traffic will dwindle
to a trickle where a few wide body aircraft will operate air services and tourists will
prefer to have their vacations in nearby destinations. Airlines with totally different
structures and profiles will team up. This might already be happening: American
Airlines—a famous long haul carrier—has teamed up with Jet Blue—a carrier with a
different profile—where the partnership will include code-sharing and network
cooperation. Joanna Geraghty, Jet Blue’s CEO said: “Pairing JetBlue’s domestic
network with American’s international route map creates a new competitive choice
in the Northeast, where customers are longing for an alternative to the dominant
network carriers. This partnership with American is the next step in our plan to
accelerate our coronavirus recovery, get our crewmembers and our aircraft flying
again, and fuel JetBlue’s growth into the future.”
American Airlines President Robert Isom said: “This is an incredible opportunity
for both of our airlines. American has a strong history in the Northeast, and we are
proud to partner with JetBlue as the latest chapter in that long history. Together, we
can offer customers an industry-leading product in New York and Boston with more
flights and more seats to more cities.”
Air travellers are profoundly disoriented and free market forces may just give
them a much better deal with “shock therapy” that might force airlines to give up
aggressive competition and monopolies of route structures. Liberalization might just
take on its true meaning and purpose of serving the passenger better with equality of
opportunity for small as well as large carriers to bind together with a close synergy.
Above all, this might be a good opportunity for the International Civil Aviation
Organization (ICAO)—the club of States under the United Nations umbrella—and
the International Air Transport Association (IATA)—the trade association of air-
lines—to get together and come up with a revised interpretation of liberalized routes
and air services in the best interests of the travelling public, and one that would
effectively preclude economic exploitation of the pandemic crisis by powerful forces
for their own benefit. In the parlous state all airlines are in, there would be no better a
time than to muster States and airlines to carve out a win-win situation where both
the passenger and traveller wins. Airports Council International (ACI)—the associ-
ation of airports could form the threesome where it could discuss revisions of
charges imposed.
The equitable sharing of the skies is not a new phenomenon. Seventy-six years
ago, at the Chicago Conference, when the future of commercial air transport was
discussed in a post World War setting, this was a serious topic of discussion but
polarization among the two great powers at the time—The United States and
Britain—stymied it. This is why ICAO has no say in air transport economics and
is relegated to a limited function to guide the progress of air transport by fostering the
planning and development of air transport.
If one were to claim that lop sided competition in air transport has so far resulted
in something distinctly immoral about exploiting society at its most vulnerable
moment where there is no alternative but to resort to available air transport, he
1.3 Will Aviation Collapse? 5

might not be incorrect. It is in fact a blatant exploitation of a human right, that

ensures not to be used or exploited for another’s benefit.
Perhaps the shock doctrine might give rise to a new era in the liberalization of air
transport?

1.3 Will Aviation Collapse?

The Director General of Airports Council International (ACI World) Luis Felipe de
Oliveira is reported to have said at a briefing on 13 October 2020 that “The COVID-
19 pandemic remains an existential crisis, and airports, airlines and their commercial
partners need direct and swift financial assistance to protect essential operations and
jobs. . .without this action, it is not an exaggeration that the industry is facing
collapse”. Both the International Air Transport Association (IATA)—the association
of airlines—and ACI World in a joint statement are also reported to have requested
governments “to address the devastating impact of border closures and other
government-imposed travel restrictions by supporting aviation’s viability through
direct financial support”. As an additional measure a request has gone out to the
Council Aviation Recovery Task Force (CART) of the International Civil Aviation
Organization (ICAO)—the specialized agency of the United Nations which overseas
international civil aviation globally—to provide an internationally agreed approach
to replace the quarantine requirements and travel restrictions that are currently
stymieing connectivity.
It is a fact that over the past months, during which the COVID-19 pandemic raged
throughout the world, the aviation industry received some State aid calculated to
keep the industry afloat and jobs retained. As to whether this has been adequate, and
more is needed, is an economic issue for the pundits to resolve on the basis of
Keynesian economic philosophy and the intrigues of international relations. How-
ever, there is no room for doubt that a global problem which portends the enormity of
the current pandemic would require a global effort, whether it be in financing a
moribund industry or in introducing an “internationally agreed approach to replace
quarantine requirements and travel restrictions” now in place.
This is not the first time that global aviation has been threatened with grounding.
Immediately consequent upon the atrocities of 9/11 which was directed geograph-
ically at the United States but resulted in global ramifications, the London Aviation
Insurance Market gave a week’s notice to all airlines that the war risk insurance
clause in their aircraft insurances policies would be withdrawn within a week. With
the ominous threat of repeated terrorist acts looming, the States had no alternative
but to temporarily ground their aircraft and seek solace in ICAO. It is noteworthy
that at this time aviation insurance was not in ICAO’s work programme nor had it
had ever been. In view of the dire threat to the sustainability of international air
transport, ICAO, to its credit, sprang into action and convened a high level security
conference, aimed at strengthening security against future attacks against aviation,
6 1 Prelude to Disaster

while at the same time activating meetings to discuss a suitable global insurance
scheme for both airlines and airports.
At the high-level security conference, ICAO sought financial pledges from States
to support aviation security. In the current context of the pandemic, ICAO claims
that the work of CART “is aimed at providing practical, aligned guidance to
governments and industry operators in order to restart the international air transport
sector and recover from the impacts of COVID-19 on a coordinated global basis”. In
this context CART is eminently placed to initiate global measures of cooperation to
keep the aviation industry afloat. By ICAO’s own admission “the impact of the
coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic on global air transport is without prece-
dent”. Never before, in the history of regulated international civil aviation has such a
catastrophe befallen the industry. ICAO’s meaning and purpose, as dictated by
international treaty which gives the Organization credibility, hinges on inter alia
on ensuring safe and orderly civil aviation which meets the needs of the people of the
world for safe, regular, efficient, and economical air transport.
It is incontrovertible therefore that both the financial sustenance as well as safety
of air transport come within the parameters of the aims and objectives of ICAO.
CART is advocating what it credibly calls a “restart and recovery” approach which
has the following elements: protect people: harmonized but flexible measures; work
as one aviation team and show solidarity; ensure essential connectivity; actively
manage safety-, security- and health-related risks; make aviation public health
measures work with aviation safety and security systems; strengthen public confi-
dence; distinguish restart from recovery; support financial relief strategies to help the
aviation industry; ensure sustainability; learn lessons to improve resilience. While
many of these headings concentrate on safety and public health against the backdrop
of passenger confidence, such headings as ensure essential connectivity, distinguish
restart from recovery; support financial relief strategies to help the aviation industry;
ensure sustainability, are seemingly on the right track in terms of sustainability of the
aviation system.
A Report released by CART recommends that the above economic measures
“should be inclusive, targeted, proportionate, transparent, temporary and consistent
with ICAO's policies, while striking an appropriate balance of interests without
prejudice to fair competition. States and the civil aviation industry will need to
commit towards building a more resilient air transport system, supported by clear
communication and the recognition of aviation’s vital role as a worldwide enabler,
more so in times of crisis. In particular, States should identify and bridge gaps, with
ICAO's assistance, to ensure adequate support to vulnerable segments of the inter-
national community and provision of essential services. A major element for future
preparedness will involve analysing insights and experience gained from this crisis
to improve processes and coordination mechanisms”.
CART concludes that the success of aviation’s recovery today and future resil-
ience is best achieved with collective efforts among stakeholders across regions and
sectors. Quite apart from the health recommendations in the Report of CART, which
are more compulsive and impossible for States to ignore, the economic measures are
replete with the usual ICAO language: “States should provide the most appropriate
1.4 A Vaccine? 7

means for supporting stakeholders across the civil aviation sector, if and when
deemed necessary, (my emphasis); possibly through regional or international eco-
nomic cooperation; these measures must be inclusive, targeted, proportionate, trans-
parent, temporary, limited to what is necessary to mitigate the impact of COVID-19
and consistent with ICAO’s policies while striking an appropriate balance among the
respective interests without prejudice to fair competition or compromising safety,
security and environmental commitments.
In all fairness, this might be as far as ICAO can go, language wise. However, the
same recommendations made by CART could have been given by just about any
group of sensible professionals with a foundation in diplomatic language. The issue
is whether the offerings of CART would achieve what ACI and IATA have
requested, which is certainly not “if and when needed”. One could well ask whether
there could at least be a global meeting to discuss practical issues, such as those
convened by ICAO after 9/11. After all, if the United Nations General Assembly
could be held on Zoom, there should be no problem for the ICAO Council to
convene a similar meeting to discuss the practicalities of such an unprecedented
cataclysm.

1.4 A Vaccine?

On 23 November 2020 Reuters, along with other media such as CNN reported that
Australia’s Qantas will insist in future that international travelers have a COVID-
19 vaccination before they fly, describing the move as “a necessity”. Furthermore,
Reuters quoted QANTAS Chief Alan Joyce as saying “We are looking at changing
our terms and conditions to say, for international travelers, that we will ask people to
have a vaccination before they can get on the aircraft,” This statement comes in the
wake of promising news of a vaccine being developed by several sources and
vaunted as both effective and result oriented.
The World Health Organization records that there are currently more than
100 COVID-19 vaccine candidates under development and the process of introduc-
ing a viable vaccine could take a while: “Many potential vaccines for COVID-19 are
being studied, and several large clinical trials may report results later this year. If a
vaccine is proven safe and effective, it must be approved by national regulators,
manufactured to exacting standards, and distributed. WHO is working with partners
around the world to help coordinate key steps in this process. Once a safe and
effective vaccine is available, WHO will work to facilitate equitable access for the
billions of people who will need it.”
In the meanwhile, the International Air Transport Association (IATA)—a global
association of airlines representing the air transport industry—is in the final devel-
opment phase of the IATA Travel Pass, a digital health pass that will support the safe
reopening of borders. This travel pass is expected to manage and verify the secure
flow of necessary testing or vaccine information among governments, airlines,
laboratories, and travelers. For its part The International Civil Aviation Organization
8 1 Prelude to Disaster

(ICAO)—a specialized agency of the United Nations with a global membership of

States—through its Council Aviation Recovery Taskforce (CART) makes mention
of its Testing and Cross-Border Risk Management Measures Manual and adds, while
acknowledging that testing is not universally recommended by public health author-
ities as a routine health screening method, exhorts States contemplating testing in
their COVID-19 risk management strategy to follow the approach outlined in the
Manual.
Arguably, the most sensible recommendation of CART is that “States considering
the formation of a Public Health Corridor (PHC) should actively share information
with each other to implement PHCs in a harmonized manner. To facilitate imple-
mentation of PHCs, the ICAO Implementation Package (iPack) on establishing a
PHC is available to States”. At no point in the annals of commercial aviation have
the two key words “standardization” and “harmonization” been relevant and critical
than in the current context of the pandemic where compliance and global consistency
of measures have to be rigidly followed through the centrifugal forces of commu-
nication and sharing of information.
An article published on 7 November 2020 in the Lancet states: “A first generation
of COVID-19 vaccines is expected to gain approval as soon as the end of 2020 or
early 2021. A popular assumption is that these vaccines will provide population
immunity that can reduce transmission of severe acute respiratory syndrome coro-
navirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and lead to a resumption of pre-COVID-19 “normalcy”.
Given an initial reproduction number of around 2
2,1 which has since been revised
to as high as about 4, and taking into account overdispersion of infections, 2 perhaps
about 25–50% of the population would have to be immune to the virus to achieve
suppression of community transmission”.
There might be a few snags along the way. Firstly, there is no conclusive evidence
that a person who is vaccinated against the virus will not infect another. WHO says: “
When a person gets vaccinated against a disease, their risk of infection is also
reduced – so they’re also far less likely to transmit the disease to others” This
means there is no guarantee that a flight full of vaccinated persons will not give
the virus to others along the way before the air transport contract is concluded.
According to international treaty as interpreted by decided litigation the carrier is in
control of the passenger from the boarding gate until he clears his baggage from the
carousel on arrival. Does this mean that the carrier would have to ensure that the
vaccinated passengers do not come into contact with any other person while
disembarking? Would the fact that all passengers are vaccinated be sufficient for
the carrier to disregard the recommendations of CART such as: adjustment of the
boarding process to ensure, to the extent possible, and consistent with weight and
balance considerations, the boarding and disembarking of passengers is conducted in
ways that reduce the likelihood of passengers passing in close proximity to each
other; should seats be assigned for adequate physical distancing between passen-
gers? Should airlines allow for separated seating arrangements when occupancy
allows it? Should Passengers be encouraged to stay in the assigned seat as much as
possible? Or should their movements be controlled in the cabin? should interaction
1.5 The Travel Bubble 9

in the cabin be limited or suspended? Should food and beverage services be curtailed
or suspended? How about lavatory access?
The airline is a “common carrier”. Therefore, incontrovertibly, whenever an
airline issues a ticket to a passenger in return for the payment of money, the airline
undertakes to carry the passenger to the destination given in his ticket with reason-
able care and within a reasonable time. Courts have accordingly followed the
principle that the airline is contractually bound to carry a passenger who has been
issued with a passenger ticket and that the airline is bound by the following legal
parameters: to carry any person, without the imposition of any unreasonable condi-
tions, if he is not in an unfit condition, and has paid his fare; to carry the passenger
safely; to treat the passenger with due care throughout his/her flight; and, to ensure
that the passenger is given the benefit of the speed inherent in air transport. All this
means that whatever measures the air carrier adopts they should not be an undue
burden on the passenger. This can only be attained through a globally harmonised
system and not by piecemeal efforts.

1.5 The Travel Bubble

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) defines a “Travel Bubble”—a

response to the inhibitive effect that the proliferating COVID-19 virus has wrought
on air transport—as “A State level agreement that enables international air travel
between 2 (or more) countries based on a mutually agreed set of public health
mitigation measures”. The travel bubble is also known by different sobriquets as
‘travel corridors’; “corona corridors”; “corona bridges” or ‘airbridges’. Essentially,
the travel bubble pairs off origin and destination countries of a flight that are capable
of equalizing infection risk between them, based primarily on infection rates in
proportion to the population of the countries concerned; trends in infection rates
(decreasing, stable, increasing) chronologically determined; transmission rates; sim-
ilarity of quarantine measures imposed at entry if applicable; and the efficacy of
overall public health response to the threat of spread of the virus in the countries
participating in the travel bubble.
The travel bubble will have to be implemented within the parameters prescribed
in international treaty. Article 13 of the Convention on International Civil Aviation
requires compliance with the laws and regulations of the landing State pertaining
inter alia to quarantine requirements of that country. Although the treaty does not
explicitly devolve responsibility upon a specific entity in this context, it is implicit
that the responsibility would rest with the airline.
The travel bubble has not merely remained a buzzword but has evolved in
popularity around the world. There are travel bubbles being bounced back and
forth between Singapore and Hong Kong as well as New Zealand; Australia and
New Zealand; Hong Kong with Japan and Thailand; Japan with Cambodia, Laos,
Malaysia, Myanmar and Taiwan (for residents); Indonesia with the United Arab
Emirates; and India with 13 countries. It is also reported that officials of the United
10 1 Prelude to Disaster

States and the United Kingdom are discussing possibilities of a transatlantic “air
bridge” with a view to establishing air transport links between New York and
London that would obviate the usual 14-day quarantine.
The International Civil Aviation Organization’s Council Aviation Recovery Task
Force (CART) recommends inter alia that at the stage of initial increase of passenger
travel, there should be relatively low passenger volumes, allowing airlines and
airports to introduce aviation public health practices appropriate to the volume.
CART envisions that there will be significant challenges as each stakeholder com-
munity requiring adaptation to both increased demand and the new operational
challenges associated with risk mitigation and that health measures for travel
required at airports will need to, at a minimum match those from other local
modes of transport and infrastructure. CART also recommends that States ensure
that health screening is conducted in accordance with the protocols of the relevant
health authorities. Additionally, it is recommended that screening could include
pre-flight and post-flight self-declarations, temperature measurement and visual
observation conducted by health professionals. Such a screening, upon entry or
exit, could identify potentially high-risk persons that may require additional exam-
ination prior to working or flying. An important recommendation is that the data
collected, and information gathered could be used to effectively adopt a risk-based
approach that would instill confidence in an otherwise apprehensive passenger.
The World Health Organization (WHO), in an advisory issued on 30 July 2020
states inter alia “The gradual lifting of travel measures (or temporary restrictions)
should be based on a thorough risk assessment, taking into account country context,
the local epidemiology and transmission patterns, the national health and social
measures to control the outbreak, and the capacities of health systems in both
departure and destination countries, including at points of entry. Any subsequent
measure must be proportionate to public health risks and should be adjusted based on
a risk assessment, conducted regularly and systematically as the COVID-19 situation
evolves and communicated regularly to the public”.
It is incontrovertible that all three institutions—IATA, ICAO and WHO have
stringently advocated a risk- based approach requiring prudent risk management. In
this context IATA has suggested three alternatives for the travel bubble: “The Basic
Travel Bubble (BTB) with the standard set of public health risk mitigation measures;
The Limited Travel Bubble (LTB) with an additional requirement for a test within
24-48 hours of departure; The Extended Travel Bubble (ETB) with a requirement for
a test within 24-48 hours of departure and a second test within 24-48 hours of
arrival”.
A key area in risk management is the compensatory element where airlines will
have to take a close look at their insurance policies and policy renewals for coverage
for infection of passengers whereas travelers would have to be circumspect of their
travel insurance before they travel. This would not be confined to the case of the
travel bubble but would apply to air travel in general. As for States, requirements for
which are the main focus of all three institutions, risk management should be driven
by information technology and the speed in which information is exchanged
between States that would enable screening as necessary at entry and departure
1.6 Is Virtual Travel an Alternative to Air Travel? 11

points as well as contact tracing where necessary. In this context Advance Passenger
Information could prove to be an effective measure in the facilitation of clearance.
For example the Kyoto Convention (Convention On the Simplification And Har-
monization Of Customs Procedure), in Annex J at Article 5.5: “Recommended
Practice 8 states: The Customs, in co-operation with other agencies and the trade,
should seek to use internationally standardized advance passenger information,
where available, in order to facilitate the Customs control of travelers and the
clearance of goods carried by them”.
In the ultimate analysis, the heavier burden will have to be borne by the airline
which would have to take prudent measures to ensure that, not only are health
requirements of a recipient State met in terms of documentation, but that all
reasonable measures are taken to determine that a passenger who boards the aircraft
is not infected. This would include, as recommended by WHO: “checking for signs
and symptoms (fever above 38 C, cough) and interviewing passengers about respi-
ratory infection symptoms and any exposure to high-risk contacts, which can
contribute to active case finding among sick travelers. Symptomatic travelers and
identified contacts should be guided to seek or channeled to further medical exam-
ination, followed by testing for COVID- 19”. There should also be access to digital
databases for contact tracing and assisting States.
Additionally, conditions on board the aircraft would have to conform to
established requirements with regard to social distancing, service, sanitation et al.
Health requirements of crew would also have to be seen to. The travel bubble is yet
another bit of proof that human ingenuity kicks in to remedy problems and face
challenges. However, communicable disease is one problem that should not be
treated as being solved on a foolproof basis by the travel bubble. The slightest
human error could cause chaotic results in the spreading of the disease in gigantic
proportions. As Douglas Adams once said: “A common mistake that people make
when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the
ingenuity of complete fools.”

1.6 Is Virtual Travel an Alternative to Air Travel?

During this pandemic period we are going through, the question on everyone’s lips is
“what is the new normal going to be”? In the context of air transport this question has
given rise to diverse views, ranging from: “over time, people will forget the crisis
ever occurred and its horrendous claim on hundreds of thousands of life and
eventually get back to what the world was in 2019”; to “air travel will be different
from what it was”. No one has adduced any cogent proof of either premise. Hovering
over these two scenarios is the shroud of reality that there is an innate desire, almost
an obsession, in the average human mind to travel to distant places; breathe different
air; swim in different lakes and see different exhibits in museums in their natural
state.
12 1 Prelude to Disaster

There are certain incontrovertible factors to be considered which admittedly are

platitudes but nonetheless true. The first is that the human being is a collective
animal. This is brought to bear not merely by the recent outcries and vociferous
protests demanding the right to gather together in public by people in places like
Serbia and Brazil, and even in the United States but also by the fact that people
thronged bars, restaurants, beaches and other public places the moment the lock-
down was lifted in various countries. This is an implicit recognition that technology
cannot replace human physical interaction. Sherry Turkle, Professor at the Massa-
chusetts Institute of Technology once said: “We expect more from technology and
less from each other. We create technology to provide the illusion of companionship
without the demands of friendship”.
The second truth is that people travel for different reasons: to conduct business; to
see places and experience what the world has to offer; to receive education in a
foreign country; to experience live music at music festivals; go to the theater; and to
visit their friends and relatives. There could be other reasons as well.
We are now globally destitute of all these privileges and, in keeping with our
innate and relentless obsession with ingenuity and creativity, we have come up with
“virtual travel”. In this context, the first thing that comes to mind is: “what is the
purpose of travel”? I expand this further to my own persuasion which is the study of
air transport: “what is the purpose of international air transport”. The answer, in
simplistic terms is “to bring the world together by connecting the world and its
people”. If one were to be more specific and technical, one could quote the
international treaty that addresses international aviation—the Chicago Convention
on 1944—of which the full title is “Convention on International Civil Aviation”
which says inter alia in its Preamble that the future development of international civil
aviation can greatly help to create and preserve friendship and understanding among
the nations and people of the world.
Our present discussion hinges on the words “friendship and understanding among
the nations and people of the world”. The question then becomes: would virtual
travel succeed in furthering friendship and understanding among us globally”? For
instance, how could virtual travel allow us to befriend another at the poolside in a
foreign hotel? Would we be able to chat with another tourist from a foreign country
while travelling in a train from Budapest to Prague? Would we be able to talk to the
owners of a Mom and Pop deli in Chianti about their homemade spaghetti? And
speaking of conducting business, what about chit chat at a cocktail reception that
could lead to a good deal? Or what about compromises reached at the coffee break at
a United Nations?
Those who are proponents of virtual travel claim that there are already 150 million
users of Google Maps and many millions using Google Earth as well which reflect
that virtual reality is already popular among people. There are highly attractive
virtual tours from places such as the Feroe Islands and the Bahamas which are
calculated to be popular among potential travellers and virtual tourists. They also
claim that under the circumstances of constrained air travel people will make
informed decisions on the minimum loss of experience of being physically “there”
as against the significant advantages of avoiding queues at museums and being able
1.6 Is Virtual Travel an Alternative to Air Travel? 13

to gape at paintings and artifacts as long as they want to without being rushed to keep
moving on in a queue past the Mona Lisa at the Musee du Louvre.
It is also predicted by some that the travel industry will eventually realize that
travel is not really only about physical travel only but also about “selling experi-
ences” without physical travel. It is claimed that with the rapidly advancing tech-
nology this could be made possible with augmented reality. It will be an experience
without being there.
My take is that virtual travel, with all that technology has to offer as mentioned
above, could be a useful tool for airlines to firstly entice travellers to their route
network with pre travel experiences of digitally prepared promotions. This way
airlines could amplify their networks and encourage and enhance advance bookings.
Secondly, airlines can have their own data and use it to their competitive advantage.
They could give virtual reality tours to attract potential tourists by showing favourite
destinations and places of interest, favourite cafes and restaurants etc.
One expert commented at a recent webinar conducted on the subject that every
crisis has an opportunity and virtual travel could well be that opportunity. In other
words, this could be a win-win situation where even the customer would benefit as
virtual travel would augment customer experience at low cost.
Of course, it is difficult to envision an era where virtual travel will completely
replace air travel.. This would be like imagining having food when one is hungry
without having real food. It would not allay a person’s hunger. The bottom line is the
human experience. Will the businessman lose an opportunity that would have
presented itself at a tête-à-tête in a bar or pub after working hours? Would students
not be able to benefit anymore of the feeling of studying in a foreign environment?
Would staring at a screen in a lonely basement room watching virtual people
drinking coffee at a busy café be the same as being there?
As Sherry Turkle said at a recent Ted Talk: “We are at a moment of temptation,
ready to turn to machines for companionship even as we seem pained or
inconvenienced to engage with each other in settings as simple as a grocery store.
We want to instrumentalize daily life with real people and accept fantasies of
“intimate” conversations with robotic personal assistants who have no real under-
standing of what we are saying to them in terms of what things mean to us.
We seem lonely but afraid of intimacy. Siri, the social network, digital assistants,
all of these give the illusion of companionship without the demands of relationship.
The path we are on seems fraught with paradox and about the most important human
matters”.
After all, air transport became the force it is today because it was meant to
promote friendship and understanding among people. Would virtual travel
change this?
14 1 Prelude to Disaster

1.7 Pandemic Free Skies?

The Council Aviation Recovery Task Force (CART) of the International Civil
Aviation Organization is ICAO’s response to the pandemic. According to ICAO,
this body is “aimed at providing practical, aligned guidance to governments and
industry operators in order to restart the international air transport sector and recover
from the impacts of COVID-19 on a coordinated global basis”. Its most recent
initiative, according to a recent Reuters report, might be to recommend more testing
at airports. According to an article in Airways Magazine, airlines and airports have
been wishing that CART would recommend to States that Negative Polymerase
Chain Reaction (PCR) tests be required of travelers within 48 h of travel that would
obviate the usual 14-day quarantine period.
On 11th September 2020 The European Commission proposed a common traffic
light system for member states of the European Union aimed at coordinating border
controls and remedying the ongoing disparate and confusing patchwork of corona-
virus restrictions on travellers across Europe. Ekathimerini.com positioned in Greece
reported: “under the proposal, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and
Control would produce a weekly map with every region or country coloured
green, orange or red. . .restrictions, whether a quarantine or a test, would be appro-
priate for those coming from red zones, although the measures should be the same
for all red zones, whether inside or outside the country. Countries would be free to
determine what measures to take.
The colour coding is based on two criteria—no restrictions for people from areas
with 50 or fewer COVID-19 infections per 100,000 people in 14 days, or where the
percentage of positive tests is below 3%, unless the number of cases exceeds 150.
Red zones denote regions or countries with over 150 cases per 100,000 or over
50 cases if at least 3% of COVID-19 tests are positive”.
Amidst all these developments, Alitalia has introduced a pilot project on its flights
between Rome and Milan, using PCR tests at the departing airport, where the results
will be known in 30 min and only passengers who test negative will be allowed on
the fight. The significance of this measure is that authorities in Italy, much to their
credit, have not waited for CART to come up with a global recommendation.
If this practice spreads far and wide in the air transport world, it could prove an
effective measure in alleviating the economic constraints faced by the industry. It is
possible that the PCR testing process could spread to international transport and
consequent easing of restrictions on air travel.
Of course, these measures would not attain fruition without international coop-
eration between States as well as between States and international organizations
concerned. A key support area would lie in financing, particularly poor countries and
the provision of critical commodities to them. Needless to say, air transport would be
playing a key role in this endeavour, which is all the more reason to have a
contingency plan for the sustenance of global air transport in a crisis situation.
COVID-19 was unique in the context of earlier outbreaks of an influenza pan-
demic. Firstly, the world had been warned in advance by preceding outbreaks of
1.7 Pandemic Free Skies? 15

communicable diseases. Secondly, this warning gave us ample opportunity to

prepare for an outbreak. WHO observed that, since late 2003, the world had
progressively moved closer to a pandemic since 1968 when the last pandemic of
the twentieth century occurred. WHO also said that, during 2005, ominous changes
have been observed in the epidemiology of the disease in animals. WHO advised
that, as a response to a pandemic threat, the world should take advantage of the
gradual process of the adaptive mutation of the virus and implement early interven-
tion with antiviral drugs, supported by other public health measures.
Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in 2003/2004 was a clear harbinger
of things to come and now we have ample experience to develop such measures.
During the SARS outbreak stringent and effective measures were taken amidst
robust international cooperation. On 18 November 2005, temperature screening of
people arriving at Hong Kong at Lowu and Lok Ma Chau were activated using infra-
red thermo imagery techniques. This measure amply demonstrated that, from an air
transport perspective, technology was available to combat an outbreak of flu around
the world.
With the PCR test passengers on board would be comfortable in the belief that all
passengers in the cabin had been tested to be negative for the virus. Another
comforting thought, which the passengers should be educated on is the fact that
the ventilation system in the cabin and the filters used reduce the risk of a pathogen
being communicable. As commentator J. May has observed: “there is nothing about
an aircraft cabin that makes it easier to contract a communicable disease. In fact,
quite the opposite appears to be true. The ventilation patterns on aircraft, combined
with the circulation of air through High Efficiency Particulate Air (HEPA) filters
reduces the spread of airborne pathogens, especially when compared with other
public places”.
While all this is well and good, the question is whether, as was experienced
during the outbreak of SARS in Toronto, where two Toronto residents brought
SARS from Hong Kong to Toronto after travelling by air, the international commu-
nity should be more concerned with the transmission of the disease across bound-
aries, which is the real danger and not merely within the aircraft itself.
Another, arguably significant factor is that there is no 100% guarantee of the
accuracy and diagnosis of a PCR test (or any test for that matter). Therefore, while
scientific evidence takes priority over anything else, a wide discretion should be
given to States in quarantine procedures and policies. The international health
dimension of COVID-19 involves human rights issues as well. International
human rights law has laid down two critical aspects relating to public health: that
protection of public health constitutes legitimate grounds for limiting human rights
in certain circumstances (such as detention of persons or house arrest tantamount to
quarantine exercises would be justified in order to contain a disease); and individuals
have an inherent right to health. In this context it is not only the State or nation that
has an obligation to notify WHO of communicable disease, but the human concerned
as well, who has an abiding moral and legal obligation. In 1975, WHO issued a
policy statement which subsumed its philosophy on health and human rights which
stated: “The individual is obliged to notify the health authorities when he is suffering
16 1 Prelude to Disaster

from a communicable disease (including venereal diseases) or has been exposed to

infection, and must undergo examination, treatment, surveillance, isolation or hos-
pitalization. In particular, obligatory isolation or hospitalization in such cases con-
stitutes a limitation on freedom of movement and the right to liberty and security of
person”.
Test or no test at the airport, the moral obligation of a passenger who, either has
symptoms or is unwell, is to opt out of the flight even if a false reading clears him to
travel.
It is critical for an evaluation of the health and aeronautical implications of
COVID-19 that the term “health” be defined in context. While the WHO Constitu-
tion identifies as an objective of the Organization “attainment of the highest possible
level of health”, the state of health is defined as “a state of complete physical, mental
and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity”. From an
aeronautical perspective, this is a tough act to follow, as international responsibility
in the carriage of persons extends only as far as the obligation to prevent injury,
wounding or death, and not to the physical or mental well-being of a person. This
principle does not carry much weight in the COVID-19 context as the mental well
being of a passenger on board a flight is crucial, that would give him the assurance
that he is traveling in a clean aircraft.
In air transport, all factors: public health; human rights; communication as well as
the confidence of the passenger who embarks on a flight, are equally important.

1.8 Disruptive Innovation

1.8.1 Airline Food

Something strange seems to have happened in the world of air transport during the
restrictive pandemic period. For my 38 years as an aviation professional, and in all
my travels, I have never heard anyone say anything positive about airline food: food
served in Economy-Class, that is. Of course, food in Club or First-Class is another
matter where I have heard some say the food served there is “fit for angels”. This is
no small wonder considering the enormous gap between the Economy fare and
Business or First-Class fare. What is intriguing is that there has been a surge of
demand in many parts of the world for Economy-Class food served terrestrially by
airlines which have established outlets on the ground or contracted out to sell
packaged airline food trays to travel crazy travelers who are now precluded from
jet setting around the world.
Whether it is the smell of airline food that triggers bouts of nostalgia which helps
simulate the travel experience or a subconscious and hidden desire for the taste of
food sold cheap on the ground, is an enigma for one to unravel. The fact remains that
sales have been brisk on the ground. The Daily Mail records that “[A]ccording to
The Wall Street Journal 40,000 snack packs that were originally supposed to be
supplied to JetBlue have now been sold by the company Imperfect Foods”. The
1.8 Disruptive Innovation 17

article goes on to explain what’s been happening in Australia: “Gate Gourmet is one
of the world's biggest airline catering companies and has been supplying meals to
international airlines flying to and from Australia since 2002. But the supplier has
opened its doors to the public in the midst of COVID-19, with customers now able to
order an assortment of economy class meals, including vegetarian and
non-vegetarian options.
While some are enjoying the experience of pretending they’re on a long-haul
flight, others say they are simply easy prepared meals they can put into the micro-
wave and serve up for a quick lunch. 'It's a fantastic offer - I've bought 20 meals for
$50AUD ($35 USD). Great to keep in the freezer for a quick lunch or alternative to a
takeout dinner. And helps support the tourism industry,’ one woman said in a
Facebook group”.
The Economist of August 29, 2020 has a similar report citing Asian airlines in
general. It says inter alia “Garuda is not the only Asian airline to flog its food to the
land-lubbing public. Santan, owned by AirAsia, a big low-cost carrier, sells two
Malay staples, nasi lemak and beef rendang (each $4) at its main hub in Kuala
Lumpur, Malaysia. Thai Airways offers stir-fried tiger prawns ($8) and tandoori
lamb chops ($9.25) in Bangkok. Hong Kongers can pick up $5 “stir-fried beef strip”
and “Indian curry fish” from Cathay Pacific’s catering arm. Australians can choose
from the voluminous menu of SnapFresh, an airline caterer, or buy a mystery meal
from Gate Gourmet, a rival which sells “main meals combination” or “vegetarian
combination” in bulk packs”.
“The grub is flying off the trolleys. Santan sells about 700 meals a day; SnapFresh
roughly twice that. In June Gate Gourmet sold out. PT Aerofood is so pleased with
“Fly with Meals”, as it calls its retail wing, that it is opening restaurants in three big
Indonesian cities. It is a far cry from the 80,000-90,000 meals that Garuda normally
serves each day, but it helps.”
From a purely business sense, this is classic disruptive innovation in action.
Disruptive innovation—a clever term used initially by Harvard professor Clayton
Christensen—is all about finding new markets that are hitherto untapped. Before the
pandemic, which put paid to the prolific travel by 4 billion travelers (per year) taking
100,000 flight per day around the globe, no one thought of the hidden market of
frustrated travelers who were arguably addicted in their own way, not so much for
the journey per se but for the travel experience. Professor Christensen, in an article
on disruptive Innovation in Harvard Business Review says that disruptive innovation
originates in low-end or new-market footholds.: “Disruption” describes a process
whereby a smaller company with fewer resources is able to successfully challenge
established incumbent businesses. Specifically, as incumbents focus on improving
their products and services for their most demanding (and usually most profitable)
customers, they exceed the needs of some segments and ignore the needs of others.
Entrants that prove disruptive begin by successfully targeting those overlooked
segments, gaining a foothold by delivering more- suitable functionality—frequently
at a lower price”.
CNN Business has recorded: “Asia’s largest low-cost carrier is betting people
love its food so much that it opened its first restaurant on Monday, offering the same
18 1 Prelude to Disaster

menu it sells on flights. It's not a gimmick, either: AirAsia, based in Malaysia, said it
plans to open more than 100 restaurants globally within the next five years. The
quick-service restaurant's first location is in a mall in Kuala Lumpur. It's called
Santan, meaning coconut milk in Malay, which is the same branding AirAsia uses on
its in-flight menus. Entrees cost around $3 USD and include local delicacies such as
chicken rice and the airline's signature Pak Nasser's Nasi Lemak dish, a rice dish with
chili sauce. Locally sourced coffee, teas and desserts are also on the menu”.
So what is this market segment that thrives on travel? It could well be Generation
Y (25–35 year olds) which constitute 34% of global population in 2020. They are
now identified as The Global Tribe who would be in constant travel across the globe
in the years to come. Millennials are the largest generation with a population of
79 million in the United States. (also known as the Gypsy Tribe or Satellite Tribe)
are the tech savvy young who are plugged in throughout the day to social media and
the internet. They relentlessly need connectivity. In 2036 they could amount to 81.1
million, according to the Pew Research Centre They have income to spare and treat
travel almost as a daily part of their lives. Above all, they prefer pre-set meals and the
airline food tray, all assembled, meet their need without having the tedium of
cooking their own food, and being able to buy food at ridiculously cheap prices
(think of Nasi Lemak—rice cooked in coconut milk—and beef rendang at $ 2 per
portion!!).
Millennials travel patterns have been identified as follow: “85% of millennials
check multiple sites before booking their travel to get the best deal possible; 46%
book travel through a smartphone or tablet; 60% will upgrade their travel experience
by purchasing in-flight wi-fi, early deplaning, etc. They WILL post their experiences
on social media. In fact, 97% will post while traveling, and 75% will post once a day.
That's a lot of social activity. 68% will remain loyal to a program that offers them the
most rewards; Cash / Freebies’; Upgrades; Discounts”. The cheap inflight meals sold
on the ground would help airlines to consolidate their brand with this category of
traveler when good times roll again, which is inevitable.
The most basic pandemic law can be identified as “absence makes the heart grow
fonder” be it in the loss of company of loved ones or the yearning for a practice that
is abruptly taken away. To keep the latter alive, and bring back the insatiable need for
air travel, airline food could be a catalytic innovator and an effective disruptor.

1.8.2 No Destination Flights

I remember years ago, I took my two little children to Disneyworld where, at the
Epcot Center, we boarded a virtual flight called Soaring. The experience of the flight
which one goes through without leaving one’s seat invites the participant to “ Feel
the thrill as you’re raised high in the air and swept from one scenic locale to the next.
See the world’s wonders—natural and manmade—like you never have before. No
mountain is too high. No landscape is too far.
1.8 Disruptive Innovation 19

Your journey begins as the clouds part above the majestic Swiss Alps. Next,
you’ll visit polar bears in icy Greenland, swoop past sailboats on Australia’s iconic
Sydney Harbour and weave between elephants marching toward Mount
Kilimanjaro.
Glide above marvels like the Great Wall of China, the Great Pyramids of Egypt
and the Taj Mahal in India. Cruise over Monument Valley, Fiji’s Lau Island and
thundering Iguazu Falls in South America. Look down on the Eiffel Tower as it
sparkles like a jewel in the night, surrounded by the lights of Paris.”
Now, with COVID-19 in full control of our existential lives, we can actually sit in
a moving aircraft that takes us soaring. Well, not quite. We will not soar over all the
wondrous things Disney offers but, like Disney’s Soaring, we’ll not be on a real
departure/destination flight in the traditional sense. Both Disney’s Soaring and a
non-destination flight’s soaring offers the same thing—the flight experience which
we seem to miss dearly these days.
We must hand it to the airlines for innovation and creativity. COVID-19 has
brought to bear innate features of the air travel experience we never gave a thought to
before the pandemic struck. Airline food, which most of us considered unpalatable,
bland and even disgusting, is now being sold on the ground to high demand. The
journey by air, which we thought was being undertaken to go from place to place
either for business purposes or to fulfil our touristic desires to see foreign lands, has
apparently had brought with it an inexplicable thrill devoid of either of these
purposes.
It is reported that Singapore Airlines “is planning to start flights to nowhere for
flyers who have been missing the experience of flying. The move is aimed at
boosting revenues for the airline, which, according to a recent Reuters report,
plans to cut 4,300 positions, or around 20 percent of its staff, as business takes a
hit due to the coronavirus outbreak”. The Straight Times reported that the airline will
start and end its flight at the same airport (Jewel Changi Airport) and fly approxi-
mately three hours to give the passengers the feeling and experience of a flight. There
are attendant features involving an actual flight between two separate points offered
in the package: “The airline is also to include partnerships with hotels to offer
staycations, shopping vouchers at Jewel Changi Airport and limousine service to
ferry customers around”.
Others have been quick to follow. Moneycontrol News records: “ EVA Air, one
of the biggest carriers in Taiwan, recently operated a no-destination flight on Father's
Day (August 8) in Taiwan. Korean airline Air Busan operated a no-destination flight
with a select group of passengers on September 10. The flight took off from Gimhae
International Airport, travelled over multiple areas of the country, including Pohang,
Seoul, Gwangju and Jeju Island, for nearly two hours before returning to Gimhae”.
The same report says this is all to “satisfy flyer’s itch”.
At its most rudimentary level, this new development brings to bear the teleolog-
ical deconstruction of the purpose air travel was meant to fulfil from an originalist’s
point of view. If one were to refer to the driving instrument of international civil
aviation—The Chicago Convention—the “Telus” or purpose of aviation is to “pro-
mote friendship and understanding” among the people of the world. In modern
20 1 Prelude to Disaster

parlance, this phrase could translate as “promote connectivity between nations”.

Clearly, the airlines are operating no destination flights to replenish their drastically
depleted coffers in pandemic times. Promoting connectivity is far from this objec-
tive. Of course, the airlines have to survive.
There has been no known legal provision to specifically cover a non destination
flight. From a legal perspective, the key issue would be the airspace over which these
flights will be operated. One would assume that the flights will hover over the
airspace of the territory in which they take off. Territorial airspace is defined in the
Chicago Convention as the airspace above the land area and territorial waters under
the sovereignty, suzerainty, protection or mandate of the country (the latter being
12 nautical miles). If that were to be the case, any legal issue arising on board the
aircraft in flight would come within the domestic jurisdiction of the State. This is all
well and good for a domestic flight. However, if the no destination flight were to
traverse the airspace of a foreign country: say, hypothetically the Singapore Airlines
flight traverses Malaysian airspace the aircraft would have to comply with the laws
and regulations of the State flown over. If a death or injury occurs on board the
aircraft in such circumstances the laws of the State flown over would prevail
notwithstanding the domestic nature of the flight.
If a no destination flight would have an agreed stopping place outside the country
of departure and destination, say, if a flight taking off from Jewel Changi, destined to
return to the same airport stops in Kuala Lumpur for any reason as agreed in the
passenger ticket, arguably, the flight could be defined as an international flight. In
such an instance, both the Warsaw Convention of 1929 and The Montreal Conven-
tion of 1999 (which replaced the Warsaw Convention) which address issues
concerning “international flights” define an international flight as one between two
points in different countries or between the place of departure and the place of
destination in the same country with an agreed stopping place in another country.
There is no specific mention that the two places in the same country should be
different.
In definitive terms the no destination flights at first glace seemingly defy the very
nature of a commercial airline, which is a “common carrier”. A common carrier was
defined in 1925 in the United States in the case of Burnett v. Riter as “one who
engages in the transportation of persons or things from place to place for hire, and
who holds himself out to the public as ready and willing to serve the public
indifferently, in the particular line in which he is engaged”. Here, “from place to
place” presumably meant from one place to a different place but, in the absence of
specificity, one could argue that from one place to the same place could also fit into
the description.
These are unprecedented times calling for a reinterpretation of the nuances of air
transport. What seems to be going on with the emergence of new uses for aircraft and
airline catering is that airlines are finding new and hidden markets hitherto
untouched. If this is not disruptive innovation, nothing is.
1.9 Will the Pandemic Drastically Change Megatrends? 21

1.9 Will the Pandemic Drastically Change Megatrends?

No one would argue that the Pandemic has altered much of our day to day life both
personally and professionally. Much of the world’s population, which had revelled
in lively social intercourse, was forced to retreat into its burrows under a global lock
down. Until early 2020, the world had a clear perception of Megatrends – large and
transformative forces that were affecting our existential lives: the economic shift
from the West to the East; rapid urbanization; demographic shift; technological
change; hyperconnectivity and climate change. In other words, a megatrend is a
global direction towards which a large transformative force drives the entire world. It
is not sectarian, affecting merely a part of the world; region; or country. Megatrends
affect our existential life and connect everything: data; processes; humans; and
geo-political instability. Thus, Megatrends represent an important shift in the pro-
gress of a society.
Megatrends are driven by what are called “Drivers” such as: globalization;
competition; digitalization; decreasing lifestyle satisfaction; terrorism; entrepreneur-
ial mindset; geo political challenges; emergence of alternative lifestyles; increasing
energy demands; wearables (smartphones et.al); drones; augmented and virtual
reality; blockchain and cryptocurrencies; 3D printing; biotechnology; robotics;
cyber deceit; and sustainability (which is the key driver of innovation). These
Drivers are often misquoted and wrongly regarded as Megatrends, which they
are not.
Taking the Megatrends in the order mentioned above, the drivers of the global
economic shift from West to East are geo politics; global income inequality;
volatility and weakness of the global economy; the changing industry supply
chain; shift to a knowledge-based economy; privatization; data transparency; and
the changing nature of work and the future of work. In terms of Rapid Urbanization,
the drivers are global ageing; growth of the middle class in Asia; consumption;
population evolution; growth of mega cities; shifting ethnic identities and innova-
tions in medical technology. Demography is influenced by changing patterns in
employment; focus on technology; social values; geo-political instability; strength of
governance; and increasing influence of alternative regional and global institutions.
Along comes a new driver, the Covid-19 Pandemic—the biggest and the most
unexpected of drivers—and we are now compelled to evaluate the Megatrends in a
new light. Taking the economic shift from the West to the East, preliminary
indications are that the East has weathered the Pandemic crisis better economically
than the West and therefore the shift that existed before the invasion of the Pandemic
will continue irreversibly. In the context of urbanization E-Business Institute fore-
casts that “It’s quite possible that urbanisation will be slowed by restrictions on
travel and movement. Rural areas have also seen relatively few COVID-19 infec-
tions and deaths, and it may be that people might be less willing than they were to
move to urban areas because of their concerns about new coronavirus spikes”. These
concerns would be intensified if a vaccine does not work for a sustained period of
22 1 Prelude to Disaster

time and the world would have to go through wave upon wave of deadly contagious
diseases.
The forecast goes on to say that “[T]he impact on jobs and economies may also
stunt the growth of the middle class and limit the amount of money people have to
spend on non-essential goods. Sadly, the UN reports that global poverty could
potentially grow for the first time since 1990– a significant step backwards in the
noble ambition to reduce hunger and inequality across the world”.
Of the Megatrends—whether driven by the Pandemic or not—climate change and
demographics are irreversible, as well as the economic shift. The two critical areas
on which the Pandemic may have some effect are technological advancement and
hyper-connectivity. Both these Megatrends, like other Megatrends that are inter-
connected to each other, are intrinsically linked. To determine the effect of the
Pandemic on any of the Megatrends one must consider the Pandemic as a driver
of the Megatrends and the centrifugal point through which any scenario can be built.
There are four scenarios to envision as plausible: that the Covid-19 virus might
stay on continually, whether in Pandemic form or not; that the Pandemic and the
virus will go away like the SARS virus did; and that, depending on these two
scenarios our lifestyles will change; or we would go back to living the way we
were. There are two certainties that the Pandemic would bring to bear in any of these
scenarios. These are a health revolution and a communication revolution of sharing
information, both of which the world had not seen before in the intensity that they
would be present in the future. The generation that would impact the next 5–10 years
most would comprise the Millennials. Their life support is derived through connec-
tivity. The Pew Research Centre opines that in 2036 Millennials they could amount
to 81.1 million In Asia, Millennials (Y generation of 25–35-year olds) comprise 58%
of the population and occupy 25% of its workforce. Twenty-seven percent of
China’s population are Millennials whereas they amount to 29% of the population
of India. Eastspring Investments forecast that in the US, by 2020, one in every three
adults will also be a millennial. Whichever way we go in the scenarios mentioned
above, Millennials would take center stage in the health revolution and the commu-
nication revolution.
As for the health revolution, Millennials would be more receptive to adopting
healthier habits of consuming food and following lifestyles that are attuned to
prevention such as wearing masks in public laces such as supermarkets, transport
systems and events. The Pandemic would also nudge Millennials to rely on digital
connectivity more in terms of the sharing of data and the creation of a management
society primarily based on information. In other words, the Millennial generation
would be able to cope with the chaos caused by the Pandemic through adaptive
innovation much more effectively than the Boomers could. Additionally, the Pan-
demic would drive the world in the way of Millennials more than before as
Millennials also influence global investment through their link to artificial intelli-
gence. In what some call “the new normal” they could make supply and demand shift
to accord with their tastes, beliefs and economic proclivities.
It may be opportune at the present time to conduct a detailed study of how the
Pandemic would affect Megatrends. Such a study could address the interplay
1.9 Will the Pandemic Drastically Change Megatrends? 23

between Megatrends with one another; the effect that the exponential increase in
urbanization could have on congestion and environmental change as well as with the
increasing trend towards connecting people across the world and whether, as
claimed, the projected increase will recede back to rural areas due to the Pandemic;
the needs of the Y (Millennial) and Z generations (the latter being those born
between the mid 1990s tand2010) the economic power shift to the East; and the
overall effect of information technology on all other Megatrends.
It is incontrovertible that the three areas hardest hit by the Covid-19 lockdown are
transport, retail, and recreation. Examples are air transport; clothing and cosmetics;
and restaurants, respectively. Of these, air transport is the only commercial activity
which unintentionally helped proliferate the crisis. On 14 April 2020, The Interna-
tional Air Transport Association (IATA) said: “airline passenger revenues will drop
by $314 billion in 2020, a 55% decline compared to 2019”. Earlier, on 24 March
IATA estimated $252 billion in lost revenues ( 44% vs. 2019) in a scenario with
severe travel restrictions lasting 3 months. IATA went on to say:“[T]he updated
figures reflect a significant deepening of the crisis since then, and reflect the
following parameters: severe domestic restrictions lasting three months; some
restrictions on international travel extending beyond the initial three months; world-
wide severe impact, including Africa and Latin America (which had a small presence
of the disease and were expected to be less impacted in the March analysis). . .full-
year passenger demand (domestic and international) is expected to be down 48%
compared to 2019”.The two main elements driving this are overall economic
developments during the recession brought about by the lockdown of social activity
and travel restrictions.
The Economist says: ”Wall Street analysts expect only a slight dip-in profits in
2020 (in the overall economy). . .don’t be fooled by all this. In the last recession two
thirds of the big American firms suffered a fall in sales”, saying that the median drop
was 15% year-on-year. “In this downturn falls of over 50% will be common”.
The aforesaid analyses are conclusive that the current situation is dire, prompting
some analysts to say that we are not in the midst of a recession or even a depression
but a global paralysis. However, some are using the well worn cliché “this too will
pass” and indeed pass it will for the simple reason that we humans are societal and
communal and love to travel. Air travel will resume, some day, although we could
well adapt to online conduct in areas such as education and the conduct of meetings.
Therefore, this is the time air transport managers (a collective term encompassing
airline, airport, and air navigation services managers) have to seriously think of both
the present and the future.
Firstly, these managers should collect knowledge. This should be acquired
through reading historical facts on the survival of the industry. A look at post 9/11
measures might help as both 9/11 and the current crisis have one thing in common—
the fear factor. USA Today recorded that “[D]irectly after the terrorist attacks on
9/11, the federal government closed airports, canceling thousands of flights at a
direct cost to airlines. However, even when the airports reopened, passengers were
wary of air travel, and airlines experienced at least a 30 percent reduction in demand
during the initial shock period immediately following the reopening”. Post 9/11 the
24 1 Prelude to Disaster

global insurance market for airlines collapsed forcing States to be the ultimate
insurers of their airlines. States called on the International Civil Aviation Organiza-
tion to formulate a global insurance scheme which was later called Global Time,
until the market took over, which it eventually did”. Eventually, global air transport
was revived with changes to security—a fact that could prevail after the Covid-19
crisis is overcome—but this time the measures could apply both to security and
safety.
The unprecedented nature of the global shutdown will call for a new social
contract and management must get ready with techniques acquired through reading
the performance of successful corporate entities that succeeded through disruptive
innovation. This could be done with the application of knowledge acquired, to
experiences. PepsiCo which successfully applied what it called Performance with
Purpose (PwP) to oust the soft drink giant of the time—Coca Cola—says in the
Harvard Business Review: “ companies wishing to pursue a purpose driven strategy”
ought to devise a unique product (whether it would be in the airline or airport
industry or any other industry) where “leaders should consider setting up a team
that reports directly to the CEO and scouts out the megatrends that would affect the
Organization”.
The Megatrends that would come under the purview of management would be:
the economic shift from the West to the East; rapid urbanization; demography; the
technological revolution; and the environmental impact. All these will impact a new
management approach in a post Covid-19 world in the face of the changes that
would be brought to those trends which existed pre Covid-19 era. In late 2019 we
were faced with such facts as in 2020 the global middle class will number 3 billion
people, and the aviation industry will be able to connect with them all through the
smart devices in their pockets. We forecast that by 2020, 21 billion network devices
will be in use—up from two billion just a decade ago. Mobile technology, cloud
computing, data analytics, biotech and genomics, and artificial intelligence are all
advancing rapidly. Consequently, one could expect growth opportunities related to
aircraft digitization and new high-performance materials, as well as for hybrid
engines and 3-D printing.
Managers who wish to be in a PwP team would have to be conversant with
addressing the aforesaid facts with answers to questions such as “what new measures
and creative innovations in management are necessary in a post Covid-19 air
transport world”? “what areas of talent should be developed to reach competence
in the face of a different would view?
The third and final management technique would be to act globally and not
nationally. This would require global networks of management and information
sharing. Online platforms provided by training institutions would be invaluable in
this regard. Management consultancies and training firms should start thinking of
ways and means to provide these services. We cannot get away from the fact that this
unprecedented crisis portends lasting effects on the world requiring radical changes
to the business community of the world.
We can take comfort in the fact that we are armed with a potent weapon that was
not available to us during the 1918 Flu pandemic or even the 2003 SARS crisis—
1.9 Will the Pandemic Drastically Change Megatrends? 25

information technology. However, managers should be acutely aware that artificial

intelligence will be a double edged sword that could be used for invasive identifi-
cation purposes in the context of air travel and therefore, this must be harmoniously
balanced with privacy concerns. It is a disturbing fact that the fear brought to bear by
Covid-19 upon the world will impel us to think that when it comes to competition
between health and privacy, health considerations will prevail.
Ernst & Young, in its Megatrends 2020 Report said: “The crisis has also brought
home a central tenet of our megatrends approach: that disruption does not come from
technologies and business models alone. It can equally be unleashed by national
elections, climate disruption or, in this case, a pandemic”.
Most everything related to our existential lives that connected the world, be it
global transportation, health, demography, urban population trends and even infor-
mation technology, took a drastic and unexpected turn with the pandemic where the
world turned inward and introspective, and revolutionized how we connected
through the internet. At present, the world lays emphasis on e-business that has
prompted e-Business Institute to say: “ The world was changing at a remarkable pace
before coronavirus accelerated the need for change. These changes – to business and
the way we live our lives – were being driven by five Megatrends that will continue
to heavily influence the post-COVID world. Three of these Megatrends – demo-
graphic shifts, the environmental crisis and hyperconnectivity – can be considered
immutable ‘irreversible’ shifts. The other two – the health revolution and diversity
(or the new normal)– are societal trends”. This analysis has not only left out two
megatrends that were largely recognized at the start of this year—namely the
economic shift from the West to the East and rapid urbanization – but has also
added on two social megatrends—health revolution and diversity.
Of these, only the health revolution appears arcane as the others have been
literally beaten to death by numerous writings over the past two years, including
two books, one written by the author and another groundbreaking book published by
Aviation Strategies International—a global consultancy headquartered in Montreal.
On the Health Revolution e-Business Institute says: “The global wellness industry
is now worth in excess of $4.5 trillion, bolstered by the $828 billion physical activity
market, according to research by the Global Wellness Institute. Health and wellness
apps and gurus, vitamin supplements, yoga, nutrition, dieting. People living 50 years
ago or so would have thought it extraordinary that these phenomena are so heavily
influencing the way that we live our lives. And the way that we spend our money.
But there really has been a biological mind shift. Global organic food sales have
broken the $100 billion barrier. People are focusing on their physical and mental
wellbeing. And technology-enabled consumers are taking control of their health.
Health & Wellness interest is fueling trillions of dollars in spending – Image source:
eBusiness Institute And think, too, not just of the impact COVID-19 has had on the
sales of cleaning and sanitation products during the pandemic but how new long-
term cleanliness habits will have formed during this period... People are still likely to
be anxious about hygiene when trying these products, meaning that they will be
likely to avoid in-store testers and samples. Augmented reality and livestreaming
26 1 Prelude to Disaster

have enabled people to test products in a virtual and highly personalized manner
during lockdown, and it’s likely that this trend will strengthen in the new world”.
According to Ernst & Young, there are four types of forces active in a pandemic
world: Primary Forces which have existed since pre COVID-19 times and are active
today—technology, globalization, demographics and environment—which remain
the root causes of disruption; Megatrends which interact between the waves of
primary forces to create new megatrends; Future Working Worlds riven by the
socio economic effects of the pandemic which are the global order, firms and
markets and households and individuals; and Week Signals which are waves of
primary forces whose biggest impact is further in the future. Their likelihood and the
scale and nature of their impact are more uncertain.
All the reasoning and factors adduced in the above discussion by the two eminent
institutions are valid. However, these have to be taken from a systemic perspective
which is a significant deviation from most current thinking—that megatrends exist as
mutually exclusive transformative forces. In this context, the most critical and
relevant factor is the link drawn by Ernst & Young between Primary Forces and
Megatrends where Megatrends are envisioned as interacting with Primary Forces to
create new Megatrends. This is staring at us in the face, calling for a new approach
that can be subsumed in one sustained practice of global cooperation that has
overtones similar to the 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations.
The World has to ineluctably come together to build a global infrastructure and a
global fund that would be based on unfailing global communication that
hyperconnectivity would require. The basis for this infrastructure would transcend
sovereignty the same way a multilateral treaty would but go beyond to be considered
an instrument and practice of customary international law which no country can
recuse itself from. The first step would be to make existing Megatrends systemic.
This would not be difficult as they are already integrally linked. The needed exercise
would be to determine how they are linked. The second step would be to place them
within an overarching umbrella of global public health. States should standardize
their internal practices the same way rules of the air are standardized, requiring
mandatory compliance. A close look at harmonizing the guidance offered by various
bodies addressing air transport—which is the primary conduit of infection—is also
needed within the broad spectrum of any proposed infrastructure and fund.
The fundamental truth behind the aforementioned approach is contained in a
statement by The One Campaign . . .:” Viruses don’t pay attention to borders or
geographies, so neither can we. People need to keep standing together, supporting
each other, and acting on the simple premise that this pandemic is bigger than all of
us and we’ll defeat it if we stand and act as one. We stand with the most vulnerable,
whether they live across the street or across the ocean.
We’re going to stand with our communities, in every neighborhood, town, city,
and country where we live. That includes standing with Africa and the people and
countries that are most vulnerable to the threats posed by the pandemic. This is about
principle, and solidarity, and what’s right.
1.10 Four Factors That Would Drive Pandemic Law 27

But it’s also about what’s smart: we can’t defeat a global pandemic anywhere
unless we win everywhere. We’re going to organize, mobilize, activate, and advo-
cate around three key lines of effort”.
The most challenging aspect of this discussion would lie in what new Megatrends
might appear with the clash of Primary Forces. One Megatrend might be the shift
from reliance on global supply chains to reliance on regional or local supply chains;
another could be a shift from national sovereignty to sovereign responsibility in the
context of global public health; another might be to veer from existing global and
international institutions which have been mired by nationalistic and populist atti-
tudes from member States to a truly global institution which implements collective
sovereign responsibility in facing current and new megatrends; another Megatrend
could be a shift from the traditional assessment of a country’s GDP to include quality
of life, education and the value offered by fine arts as intrinsic elements of life that
boost civic consciousness; yet another would be that urbanization could be strength-
ened and encouraged as centers for excellence in health services, thus converting
existing infrastructure from being office complexes to residential units and relegat-
ing business to the advantages offered by information technology; another possible
emergence would be the transformation of air transport from being an affordable
utility for business practice to being a luxury as businesses increasingly use infor-
mation technology to transact business.
One would hasten to add that these are all plausible scenarios that may or may not
mature as circumstances evolve. For the most part, the most glaring Megatrend still
stands as the collective intelligence of the world community in finally getting rid of
the virus spread and preparing for future disasters of this kind.

1.10 Four Factors That Would Drive Pandemic Law

1.10.1 Tell the Truth to Those Who Rely on You to Look
After Them

The Washington Post reported that when the first indications of a potentially
infectious brand of pneumonia was detected in Wuhan, health officials covered up
the scientific discovery: “The punishment meted out to Li Wenliang, an ophthal-
mologist, and others who shared information about local transmission had a chilling
effect on doctors. Ai Fen, a physician who shared the “SARS-like” lab results with
Li, was head of emergency care at Wuhan Central Hospital. Based on the cases she
saw in late December; she concluded the disease was probably human-to-human
contagious and alerted the hospital authority. But the hospital’s Supervision Depart-
ment admonished her for “spreading rumors and causing trouble . . . and causing
social panic”. A Report published in August 2020 in The New York Times by
Edward Wong, Julian E. Barnes and Zolan Kanno-Youngs concluded that “.officials
28 1 Prelude to Disaster

in the city of Wuhan and in Hubei Province, where the outbreak began late last year,
tried to hide information from China’s central leadership”.
This is a disturbing fact that percolates from the pandemic of 1918 where it is
recorded that the then President of the United States never included the word
“pandemic” in his messages and public statements but focused solely on the war
that was going on at that time. Thousands were dying at the time from what was seen
to be an uncontrollably transmissible influenza.
“Truth” or “fact” in science is an evidence-based statement, not just a “subjec-
tive” feeling or an impression, and therefore people at risk, be it from a pandemic,
epidemic or even a threat from a foreign enemy need to hear what they are up
against. As President Theodore Roosevelt said: “Patriotism means to stand by the
country. It does not mean to stand by the president or any other public official, save
exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country. It is patriotic to
support him insofar as he efficiently serves the country. It is unpatriotic not to oppose
him to the exact extent that by inefficiency or otherwise he fails in his duty to stand
by the country. In either event, it is unpatriotic not to tell the truth, whether about the
president or anyone else.”
Geoffrey P. Dobson of the Heart, Trauma and Sepsis Research Laboratory,
College of Medicine and Dentistry, James Cook University, Townsville, QLD,
Australia in an article titled Science and the War on Truth and Coronavirus says:
“Since February 2020 I have never heard the word “science” mentioned so many
times in my 30 years as a scientist, or have I witnessed its credibility being blindly
attacked for political gain. We live in a dangerous world and we are outnumbered;
20 million viruses can fit on the head of pin. We need to embrace these new realities,
listen to the experts, and not be swayed by the uninformed or naysayers”.
Essential truth embraces the reality of the moment which an effective leadership
is required to divulge to the people under the social contract theory upon which the
leader is elected by the people. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy defines the
social contract theory as a theory that is nearly as old as philosophy itself, which
establishes the principle that that persons’ moral and/or political obligations are
dependent upon a contract or agreement among them to form the society in which
they live. This means that truth is an integral element of the social contract theory
where leadership promises transparency to the people with a view to ensuring their
safety and security as well as giving them the necessary impetus to protect
themselves.

1.10.2 Show Leadership

Truth and effective leadership are ineluctably interwoven. David M. Rubenstein, in

his book How to Lead begins by saying: “I have always been fascinated with
leadership – specifically what individual leaders can accomplish by the power of
their intellect, level of their unique skill, force of their personality, or effectiveness of
their ability to persuade”. Of course, it goes without saying that, in order to show
1.10 Four Factors That Would Drive Pandemic Law 29

these qualities and conduct a leader must have intellect. Intellect and intelligence are
different: even mutually exclusive where the former is based on acquired knowledge
through memory whereas the latter is nothing but consciousness or awareness. It is
incontrovertible that the primary duty and function of a leader—be it national or
global—is to improve the lives of people.
In the current context of the pandemic, the seminal consideration of true and
effective leadership should be adherence to global cooperation. One could expand
this principle to every aspect of national or international crisis that befalls human-
kind. The absence of global cooperation and leadership and the promotion of
nationalistic policies is what Nobel Laureate Geoffrey Sachs calls “pure politics
top to bottom which has nothing to do with anything meritorious other than the idea
of temporary advantage in some geopolitical contests and contexts.” Global coop-
eration during the current crisis has been conspicuously absent. In the words of
Yuval Noah Harari “what we are seeing around the world now is not an inevitable
natural disaster. It is a human failure. Irresponsible governments neglected their
health care systems, failed to react on time, and are at present still failing to cooperate
effectively on a global level. We have the power to stop this, but so far we lack the
necessary wisdom”.
It is evident that nations have acted in their own individual interests in a global
crisis. To alleviate this problem, it might be a good idea for today’s leaders to have
two main teams in their governments: one dealing with the current situation; and the
other dealing with future scenarios.

1.10.3 Be United in Humanity

In no other year in recent times than the current one when the world has come
together where people have united to help those in distress: from health care workers
who put their lives on the line to treat COVID-19 patients, to social workers who
distributed essential items to the destitute and the desperate. In addition to these
categories there are others. Refugees International records that “As the pandemic
spreads, the coronavirus will disproportionately impact the world’s most vulnerable,
among them refugees, asylum seekers, and internally displaced people (IDPs). The
scale and speed of the pandemic underscore how deeply interconnected the world’s
populations have become. A virus does not respect borders. Nor does it discriminate.
A truly effective response, not to mention a morally correct one, also must not
discriminate”.
The Holy Prophet Mohamed is quoted as having said: “The faithful, in their love
for one another and in their having mercy for one another and in their kindness
toward one another, are like one body; when a member of it ails, all (the parts of) the
body call one another (to share the pain) through sleeplessness and fever.” Abd
al-Rahman Azzam his article “Social Responsibility in Islam” says: “The difference
between Islam and most other religions is that it did not content itself with merely
establishing acts of worship and abandon the needs of society to a Caesar or any
30 1 Prelude to Disaster

form of temporal governing body. Rather, Islam established ways of conduct,

relationships, and rights and obligations for the individual vis-à-vis members of
his family and the nation and for the nation vis-à-vis other nations”.
In Luke 10:29-37 a lawyer asks Jesus “and who is my neighbour” in response to
Jesus’ teaching: “love thy neighbour as thyself”. Jesus then teaches the Parable of the
Good Samaritan with the ultimate truth that one who has mercy on another is one’s
neighbour.
Hinduism posits that each person has a moral compass to guide one's life by
cultivating family and social values to fulfil the social responsibilities towards the
weak and the needy.
These philosophical views could give us an insight into what our rights and duties
are in this hour of crisis. My own take is that we owe a duty to our community,
strangers though they might be, to see the world as they see it, understand their
vulnerabilities and concerns, and do something about it.

1.10.4 Be Antifragile

Finally, we must also realise the fragility and randomness of our own health and life
and teach ourselves a collective humility. Nassim Nicholas Taleb, the bestselling
author of The Black Swan, in his book Antifragile introduces the reader to the
interesting and well-reasoned concept called “Antifragile”. He states that any system
which depends on predictability and presumption is fragile and that “some things
benefit from shocks and they thrive and grow when exposed to volatility, random-
ness, disorder and stressors”. According to Taleb black swans (which as we all know
are a rarity) are large-scale unpredictable and irregular events which can either
devastate those that are fragile and dependent on a certain rigid stability or energize
risk takers and flexible persons into action. This is the time to innovate and create, as
we have done so admirably with the rapid production of vaccines. We must do more
as we step into the future, through scenario planning and be ready for even greater
health and natural disasters which have been predicted by the experts.
This is a time when we must also be careful of exploitation. Naomi Klein in her
book The Shock Doctrine, The Rise of Disaster Capitalism bases her thesis on the
premise that people who are devastated by a disaster look towards rebuilding what
they lost whereas free market forces look for exactly the opposite—to start with a
clean slate by exploiting the disaster to their advantage. COVID-19 is a multi-
dimensional plague facing us. This must not happen as we tread with trepidation
into 2021.
Another random document with
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“It seems very strange to me.”
“Not at all. If you only knew the underground workings of this place,
the mentality, the way in which everything is run.... Why, here you’re
not living in the Twentieth Century at all. It’s mediæval. Even now
some spy may be trying to over-hear us.”
“A queer place!”
“Yes, and packed with the queerest people on earth. Now, for
instance, that little girl in black, just entering.”
Hugh started. The girl was Margot Leblanc. He had not seen her for
some time, and had wondered if she was still at the pension. She
was dressed shabbily and as she passed he saw that her face was
white and haggard, and her eyes stared vacantly before her. She sat
down at a nearby table.
“Now, that girl,” continued Mr. Tope, “is a puzzle to me. She came
here about two months ago and she has never been seen to speak
to any one. She is always alone. Nobody knows anything about her.
She spends most of her time in the Rooms gambling with small
stakes. I have seen her stand silently at a table for hours.... By the
way, here come my friends, the Calderbrooks. Let me introduce
you.”
The Calderbrooks were so uncompromisingly English, that their
nationality was recognizable a long way off. They wore tailored
costumes made of the same kind of tweed, with stockings of wool
and low tan shoes. Under broad-brimmed hats their faces were pink
and cheerful. The mother was sweet; the girl pretty; the father a tall
thin man, with drooping moustache, a mild manner, and pale blue
eyes.
“Yes,” said Mrs. Calderbrook, after they had been introduced, “we’re
going on to Mentony; but we thought we must spend a day or two
here.... Perfectly beautiful! Mr. Tope tells me you don’t go to the
Rooms? How very extraordinary! Of course, we strongly disapprove
of the whole thing; but I think every one should go once, if it’s only to
see. We’re going in now for the first time. Mr. Tope has promised to
be our guide. We shall play just once to say we have done so. You’d
better come with us.”
Hugh shook his head smilingly; “I’d rather not, thank you. I’ll wait
here till you come out.”
“All right. Shan’t be long.”
Piloted by Mr. Tope the three mounted the carpeted steps, passed
the bowing flunkeys, and disappeared through the swinging glass
doors. In half an hour they reappeared. They were quite excited.
“It’s wonderful,” said Mrs. Calderbrook; “Alice put five francs on the
twenty-one, that being her age. What do you think! The twenty-one
came up. They paid her a hundred and eighty francs. Of course we
stopped at once. It doesn’t do to abuse one’s luck. I really believe we
are lucky. We’re going again to-night. Father will try this time,—won’t
you, Father?”
Mr. Calderbrook said he would in his weak, refined voice. Alice was
shyly radiant. Hugh wished them further good fortune and they
returned to their hotel, eagerly talking of the play.

3.

Hugh remained a while longer. He was watching the girl of his

pension. Her face was pinched and peaked, her eyes strangely
haunting in their pathos. She was so thin that he could see the
outline of her sharp shoulder blades under her shabby jacket. Her
bright hair was braided and coiled away under a hat of black crepe.
“Poor little devil,” Hugh thought; “she looks up against it.”
Presently she took a note-book with black glazed covers from her
bag, and began to turn its pages abstractedly. Hugh saw that it was
filled with columns of figures.
“Roulette records,” he thought again, “the same idiotic obsession.”
Soon she rose; and having finished his tea, he sauntered idly after
her. He thought she was going to re-enter the Casino; but instead
she turned up-hill in the direction of the town. He saw her climb the
steps of the Church and enter its swinging door.
After waiting a little, he, too, entered. He found her seated in the cool
dusk, her slim hands crossed and her eyes closed. Whether she was
sleeping or praying he could not tell. He watched her for a while;
then as she continued to sit immovable he went away.

4.

Hugh had found that the strange theatrical charm of Monte Carlo
was most obvious after dark, and he never tired of wandering
through the still gardens, breathing the delicious freshness of the air.
Whichever way he looked a picture formed itself. The tiny paths were
like coral ribbands on a gown of green, embroidered with pansy
patterns of crimson, violet and silver. Under the lamps the blades of
the patrician palms shone like swords. There were lace-screens of
translucent green, rich velvet dusks, and sudden surprises of silver.
The fountain sprayed diamonds into the dark pool, from which came
the ruddy flash of gold-fishes; the roses climbed the palms as if to
reach the light.
That evening he took a seat on the terrace. He heard below him the
soft crooning of the sea, and felt its cool breath. Behind him was
starlight and softly luminous mountains; in front, deep violet space ...
mystery, immensity.
A small form came slowly along the terrace. As it drew near he saw it
was the strange girl who was always alone. Once or twice she
stopped, looking out over the balustrade to the sea. As she passed
him he saw that her face had the vacant look of a sleep-walker. She
sank on a bench, and took a glazed note-book from her bag. As she
looked at it she sighed with weariness. Her head drooped forward
and she slept.
Another dark form drew near her, the furtive figure of a man. Softly
he sat down on the same bench and seemed to edge nearer and
nearer.
Hugh rose, making unnecessary noise. The man, with a start,
glanced his way and swiftly disappeared. Yet in that flash Hugh had
recognized him; it was that sinister individual, the Rat.
Hugh went for a walk in the Condamine and did not return until half
past ten. He glanced down to the terrace; hunched on the bench, a
solitary figure, the girl still slept.
When he got back to the pension, he found it strangely upset. The
two Swedish ladies were going off in a fiacre with their baggage.
Their faces were very red, and they gabbled furiously. The Twitcher
and the Sword-Swallower were talking in low tones. The Rat was
nowhere to be seen.
“Perhaps,” whispered Teresa, the waitress, “I shouldn’t tell you, but
madame and mademoiselle have left us. They say some one has
gone into their room and stolen money. It was done this afternoon.
Fortunately for me I was away at the time. It is very annoying. Voila!
it is evident we have in the house a thief.”
 CHAPTER FIVE
THE THIEF
HUGH was preparing to leave the Pension Paoli. Its increasing
atmosphere of furtiveness and suspicion was getting on his nerves.
He had taken a large, sunny unfurnished room in the Condamine
and had bought a folding bed, a table, a chair, and some cooking
utensils. Here he would be alone and quite free. He would spend his
days in sketching, his evenings in reading.
He was considering all this as he sat on a bench on the terrace just
above that green promontory where they shot the pigeons. Even as
he watched the slaughter was going on. A nimble lad would run out
by one of the red, radiating paths and put a pigeon into one of the
grey boxes; then he would retire and after a short interval the side of
the box would collapse, leaving a bewildered bird facing an
overwhelming freedom. Sometimes the bird would hop around
stupidly, fearing to rise until a rubber ball bounding towards it
hastened its decision. Bang! Bang! Generally the bird would drop on
the green turf, to be swiftly retrieved by an eager dog. Sometimes,
however, it would get away and, minus a tail, circle over the sea,
finally rejoining its fellows in front of the Casino. When a pigeon
escaped, Hugh wanted to applaud for joy. But few escaped, and he
was turning away in disgust when he saw the Calderbrooks.
“Hullo!” he said, “I’m surprised. I thought you’d gone long ago.”
“No,” said Mrs. Calderbrook, “we decided to extend our stay. It’s
really a lovely little place. We find the Casino so fascinating. We go
there every day now.”
“Do you still play?”
“Oh, a little. Just for chicken-feed though. Father makes enough to
pay for his cigarettes, while I generally get the Casino to stand
afternoon tea. Oh, we’re very careful.”
“Yes,” said Mr. Calderbrook in his soft refined voice. “One has to be
careful if one goes every day. However, an old fellow called Bender
has taught me a system that so far has been very successful. You
put three pieces on the passe and two on the first dozen, or three
pieces on the manque and two on the last dozen. You have only six
numbers against you. It’s safe.”
“By the way,” said Mrs. Calderbrook, “we saw an American break the
bank yesterday, a Mr. Fetterstein. He played the number seventeen
in every possible way, staking the maximum. They had to ring for
more money. It was quite interesting. He must have won over a
hundred thousand francs. Well, Father, we’ll leave you with Mr.
Kildair to finish your pipe, while Alice and I go in to try our luck.”
When they had gone Mr. Calderbrook talked of various subjects, until
suddenly dropping his voice, he said:
“You see that man in black coming along the terrace—the tall thin
one.”
“The one with the clean-shaven face and the fixed smile?”
“Yes. That’s the great Krantz, the Chief of the Secret Police.”
As he passed them the eyes of Krantz were focussed on their faces.
“There,” said Mr. Calderbrook, “he knew we were discussing him.”
Hugh looked after the detective. His right hand, held behind his back,
was carrying what looked like a sword cane. It was a long and
muscular hand, and Hugh noted that part of the little finger was
missing.
“They say,” said Mr. Calderbrook, “that he has all kinds of spies
working for him and that he is quite unscrupulous. People who
displease him have a way of disappearing suddenly. But then
everything is high-handed about this place. It is beyond the law. All
kinds of strange things can be done here and hushed up, all kinds of
crimes go unpunished. It seems to be run quite irresponsibly. The
Casino is supreme and rules with a high hand. All it cares for is to
get money....”
Mr. Calderbrook began to bore him, and Hugh excused himself. He
returned to the pension to prepare for his departure.
“To-morrow,” he thought, “I shall go away and all these people will
pass out of my existence. It is pleasant to think one can put them so
quietly out of one’s life. Ah! the beauty of liberty!”
He felt that he could not bear to remain more than one more night
under the same roof with the Rat. The Twitcher and the Sword-
Swallower were to be tolerated, but the Rat made him shudder.
There are people who make us wish the world was bigger, that we
might have more room to avoid them. The Rat was one of these; his
very proximity was physically disagreeable. His skin was the colour
of the fresh Gruyère cheese, except where his eye sockets darkened
to chocolate. Criminal or not the man suggested reptilian
perversions.
When Hugh paid his modest bill, he received a thousand francs in
change, and as he stuffed the small notes into his pocket-book, he
was aware that the sharp eyes of the Rat were upon him.
It was after ten o’clock and the Pension Paoli was very quiet. All the
boarders were apparently at the Casino. The big building seemed
deserted.
Leaving the door of his room ajar, Hugh threw himself on his bed.
Soon he heard the street door open and some one pass upstairs. It
was the Rat.
As he lay in the darkness, and listened to the sounds of the great
gloomy house, a strange feeling of uneasiness began to creep over
him. This grew so strong that after a bit he rose and went out on his
little balcony. The air was exquisite. Over him flowed the river of
night, and looking up into its lucid depths he saw the sky, its bed,
pebbled with stars. Then his eyes drifted to the myriad lights that lay
between him and the sea, lights now clear, now confused into a
luminous mist....
What was that? Surely some one was moving softly in the passage?
No; he was not wrong. Some one was trying the door of the next
room, the Twitcher’s. But the Twitcher had locked it, and after one or
two efforts the sound ceased.
Then Hugh had an inspiration. Taking out his pocket-book he threw it
on the bed. Enough light came from the window to show it black
against the white counterpane. There! the trap was baited.
Footsteps again in the passage, fumbling, muffled. They were
drawing nearer, they were opposite his door. In the darkness he
heard hard, hurried breathing. His own heart was tapping like a
hammer. Surely the footsteps were passing? No, they had halted.
Then slowly, slowly, his door was pushed open, and a black stealthy
form crept to his bed.
He held his breath, and waited.... Now the dark shape was close....
Now an arm reached out, and a hand seized the pocket-book....
Now....
Hugh leapt forward and closed the door. He was alone in the
darkness with the intruder. He had done it. The Rat was trapped.
“You dirty sneak-thief, I’ve got you,” he cried.
He switched on the electricity, and the room leaped into light. Against
the far wall, cowering and clutching at it for support, was a figure in a
black hood and cape.
Then it was Hugh’s turn to start back and utter a cry of dismay.
For framed in the black hood, and gazing at him wild-eyed with fear,
was Margot Leblanc.
 CHAPTER SIX
THERE WAS A LONG SILENCE

1.

SHRINKING against the wall the girl looked up at him, her face sick
with terror. Amazement turned him to stone. Then suddenly he
recovered himself; and his astonishment changed to disgust.
“Well,” he said in a hard voice, “caught you in the act, didn’t I?”
She did not answer.
“I’m sorry, very sorry. I’d rather it had been any one else. Tell me, is
there any reason I shouldn’t hand you over to the police?”
No answer.
“Speak, please. Is there any reason?...”
Her arms dropped. She straightened up, and looked him full in the
face.
“There is. I’m starving. I haven’t tasted food for two days....” Then
she sank at his feet.

2.

Two hours later they were in a lonely corner of a restaurant. She had
satisfied her hunger, and was sitting silent, downcast, sullen.
He looked at her with keen, bright eyes. “Poor little devil!” he
thought, “perhaps she isn’t so bad after all.” Then aloud he said: “I
suppose when you went to the Twitcher’s room your intention was to
steal?”
She hesitated. After all, what did it matter? “Yes,” she answered. “I
went down there to steal.”
“You also stole the money belonging to the Swede women....”
“No, I didn’t do that. I swear I didn’t....”
He looked at her steadily. He did not believe her.
“What are you going to do now?”
“I don’t know.”
“What’s going to become of you?”
“I don’t know.”
He leaned back, his hands clasping his knee. He noted a tress of
bright gold hair coiling over her hollow cheek.
“I mustn’t leave her to her fate,” he thought.
Bending forward he said impulsively: “Look here, let me lend you
some money.”
A deep flush stained her cheek. He, too, was one of them ... the
beasts. Sharply she answered:
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t choose to accept your aid.”
“It seems to me you’re not in a position to refuse it; you haven’t a
sou. To-morrow you’re to be turned out of your room. Madam will
certainly keep all your belongings. You will have nowhere to go. You
have no friends here. You are not fit to do any work. You are on the
verge of a break-down. Again I ask ... what’s going to become of
you?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Yes, it does. Look here ... suppose I lay a charge against you of
entering my room with intent to steal,—will you deny it?”
“No.”
“Well then, you are in my power. You must submit to my conditions.”
She looked at him sullenly. “What are they?”
“I’m not going to lend you any money, but I am going to help you in
my own way. First of all, I want you to promise me that you will never
enter the Casino again.”
She laughed bitterly. “I’ll promise that. I hate the place.”
“Now, I’m taking a room in the Condamine. I want you to come there
and be my housekeeper.”
She could not keep the contempt out of her eyes.
“Don’t look at me like that,” he said sharply. “I see you don’t
understand.”
“You don’t mean ... that?”
“No, damn it, I don’t mean—that.”
She looked at him with new interest, steadily, wonderingly. He went
on: “It’s a big room. We’ll divide it into three, with screens and
curtains. There will be your part, and my part, and a common one to
be used as a kitchen and dining-room. Don’t fear. You’ll be as safe
behind your curtain as if you were in a room with doors double-
locked.”
She had never met a man like this. Wonder widened her eyes. He
laughed to see it, a frank boyish laugh.
“Sounds crazy, doesn’t it? I don’t see why it won’t work, though. If I
were a Frenchman, it surely wouldn’t. But we Anglo-Saxons are a
cold-blooded lot. We’re idealists, given to doing strange, mad things.
I give you my word of honour I will respect you as I would a sister.
There you have it. We will be brother and sister. We are enough alike
to pass for that. I had intended to do my own cooking, but that will be
your job now. Then, while you are resting quietly and getting back
your health, I will attack the Casino and get back your money.”
“How will you do that?”
“By playing. I hate to play, but if I do I have an idea I can win. At least
I can afford to risk a thousand francs and with that I propose to win
back the two thousand you need to take you to Paris.”
“No, no. You mustn’t play. No one ever wins there. You’ll lose
everything.”
“Leave it to me. Come on now, it’s decided. That you trust me, is all I
ask. Everything will come out right. In six weeks I promise you I’ll
send you back to Paris with enough money to start your little shop.
Brother and sister,—n’est ce pas?”
She shrugged her shoulders helplessly. “I am in your hands. You can
do with me as you will.”
Again he laughed that boyish laugh. “There! don’t look so tragic.
Everything’s lovely. Come on, we’ll get back to the pension.”
They walked in silence through the exotic gardens. The pink clock in
the tower of the Casino pointed to half an hour after midnight; the
shutters were descending over the entrance doors. He looked at the
place with a new interest. Hitherto it had meant nothing to him. Now
he saw in it an antagonist. He was looking on a battle-ground where
he would win or fall. On the morrow the fight would begin.
So absorbed was he that he forgot the girl by his side. Then a soft
sound aroused him. He looked down and saw that she was crying.
END OF BOOK TWO
BOOK THREE
The Wheel
 CHAPTER ONE
THE TEMPLE OF CHANCE

1.

MONTE CARLO is various kinds of a jewel. In the morning it glitters

like a diamond; in the afternoon it gleams like a great pearl of the
Orient; in the evening it glows with the mellow lustre of a sapphire. It
has its moods of invincible beauty. There are times when one
wonders if it is real and not the fabric of a dream. But of all its moods
its glamour is, perhaps, most felt in that mellow moment that
precedes the setting of the sun. From earth and sky exhales a great
serenity. In the golden air, a thousand windows shine like casements
of romance, the sea melts placidly into the tranquil sky, and the
mountains breathe tenderness and calm.
It was at such a moment, reassuring to the soul, that Hugh, for the
first time, mounted the seven steps that led to the temple of chance.
The sun gleamed on the brass rods of the carpet, gleamed on the
gold braid of the four porters who guarded the entrance, gleamed on
the buttons of the little page boys that swung open the double doors.
Behind the glass partition, leaning on a brass rail, and scrutinizing
every one who climbed the steps, were three detectives.
Characteristic of the place,—the eager welcome; the watching
detectives!
Hugh mounted the steps and paused at the top, just as he had seen
so many others pause to look over the scene.
Beyond the “Cheese,” the central garden was a vivid emerald,
enamelled with patterns of pansies; a breeze, pure and delicious,
rustled the palms. Daintily dressed children were throwing crumbs to
the lethargic pigeons. A shining Rolls Royce floated past and
anchored in front of the Hotel de Paris, while a tall negro in a
swallow-tail uniform descended in stately fashion and opened its
doors. The space in front of the Café de Paris was starred with
striped umbrellas and coloured with gay groups. The Roumanian
orchestra was playing with sparkling abandon and a crowd was
whirling around the “Cheese.” The English dominated the throng;—
tall, thin women with patrician noses, tall, thin men with grey hair and
lean, fresh faces. It was a suave picture of elegance and ease.
Turning to the left Hugh entered the bureau of admission. The Nice
train had just come in and behind the high curved counter the clerks
cowered before the clamouring crowd. Seated at a commanding
desk was the chief of the bureau, an owl like man with a crabbed air;
he was the final arbitror, the judge from whom there was no appeal.
Before him was a Swiss aubergiste who was trying to explain that if
the clothes he wore were not good enough for the Casino, he could
change them for better. Another rejected one, a stout woman who
had foolishly given her occupation as a dress-maker, was pointing
out that the lady ahead of her who had just been granted a card was
a femme galante, one of her clients who even owed her money. But
to such protests no attention was paid. A blank look, a shrug of the
shoulders,—that was all. Judged by Casino standards and found
wanting, they had to go away disconsolate.
Hugh, however, had no such trouble. A brisk little interpreter bustled
up; and he slipped a bill into the man’s hand. He was pushed
forward in front of the others.
“This gentleman is known to me,” said the interpreter with fluent
audacity. “He is a celebrated artist dramatic de Londres.”
So Hugh assumed the air of a jeune premier, and with many polite
smiles was handed a card.
“Now,” he murmured, “for the next step in the gambler’s progress!” A
courteous flunkey ushered him into the atrium, a galleried hall
designed to impress the visitor and put him in the proper frame of
mind to enter the Rooms. It was of staid richness, of sober dignity.
Through a vista of marble columns Hugh saw a circular refreshment
counter, and nearby a bulletin board where a group were reading the
latest despatches from the ends of the earth. On leather-padded
benches men were smoking cigarettes, and women gossiping and
criticizing all who passed. Other men and women strolled up and
down, taking a breath of air after a strenuous spell at the tables. He
overheard scraps of conversation.
“Well, I’ve made my day, but the bank gave me a hard fight for it.”
“Yes, a martingale’s deadly. It will always get you in the end.”
Looking towards the left he saw three mysterious doors. From the
center one a stream of people was pouring, with an expression on
their faces of either impassivity or disgust, elation was rare. By the
side doors another crowd was entering. Those to the left were eager
and excited; those to the right calm and blasé. These were the
respective doors for the visitor and the habitué. It was through the
visitors’ door that Hugh passed. At last! He was on the threshold of
the greatest gambling room on earth.
First impression,—nasal. How could people breathe such air? It
struck him like a blow in the face. It was so thick, so richly human,—
a compound of physical exhalations, cheap cosmetics and disease.
It almost daunted him. Second impression,—oral. A confused
murmur of many voices. A discreet rumble, punctuated by the acrid
cries of the croupiers and the click of rakes on counters. Third
impression,—visual. To the right and left were walls of human backs
surrounding pools of light. The light came from green shaded lamps
that hung from heavy cords. Peering over a triple row of shoulders
he caught a glimpse of a green table and a scuttling ball.
He passed through a smaller room into a great central one. In
contrast with the restful dignity of the atrium it was of a brilliant
beauty. Huge columns of honey-coloured onyx seemed to strike the
note of the decoration. Everything was in the same key, from the
padded seats of yellow leather to the Watteau-like panels painted on
the wall. Two immense chandeliers were tangles of gilt on which
lights clustered like grapes on a vine. Everything seemed to shine,
glisten, reflect. Even the inlaid floor was lustrous with the polish of a
million gliding feet. Just as he had called the smaller room by the
entrance the “Grey Room,” so he called this the “Hall of Light.” From
the gleaming floor to the vast dome it suggested light.
There were five tables, and each was besieged by gamblers. Those
in the outer row stretched and strained to get their money on the
table, marking the numbers in glazed note-books, shouting their
manner of staking, squabbling and scrambling for their gains. Hugh
felt a little bewildered.
As he stood there a very curious thing happened. A tall,
distinguished-looking woman, wearing a cream-coloured mantle,
advanced to the centre of the hall. She took from under her mantle a
plate of white china and deliberately let it fall to the floor. At the sharp
crash those nearest turned, and in an instant she was surrounded by
a curious crowd. Then as quietly as she had come she backed out
and disappeared. Two attendants in light blue came forward and
calmly gathered up the debris. The crowd, laughing, returned to the
tables.
While Hugh was wondering what it meant, the affable little Mr. Jarvis
Tope bustled up to him. Mr. Tope wore a white waistcoat and white
spats, and was, as the French say, “pinned at the four corners.” His
round red face was wreathed in a smile of welcome.
“Ha! young man, so at last you venture into the cave of the dragon.
Well, it’s good to see a fresh face among so many stale ones. What
was all the excitement about?”
Hugh told him of the lady and the plate. Tope laughed.
“Oh, is that all! Didn’t you know that to break china on the floor of the
Casino is supposed to change one’s luck? It’s rather a desperate
resort. The lady you saw must have been hard hit. Women believe in
those things, mascots and so on. They bet on the number of their
cloakroom check; they have their favourite tables and believe that
the croupier can control the ball. Every woman who believes in any
of these things is a fool; it’s astonishing how many are fools. Come,
I’ll explain the game to you.”
Going to what Mr. Tope called the “Suicide Table,” they pushed
themselves into the triple row of standing spectators till they were
behind the seat holders. These had a sphynx-like air of absorption.
Piles of counters were methodically stacked before them, and their
little note-books were scrupulously neat. Some were marking down
dots and zig-zag lines, some columns of figures. They played
occasionally and with deliberation. They were the regulars, the
system workers, who sat every day in the same place at the same
table.
While Mr. Tope was explaining the different methods of playing,
Hugh felt a light touch on his arm. Looking round he saw a sweet if
somewhat over-emphasized face smiling up at him. The girl wore a
bonnet that seemed to be made of tiny lilac flowers, and her hands
were daintily gloved. Hugh thought at first that she had mistaken him
for somebody else.
“Listen, Monsieur. Lend me a louis. It will bring you luck.”
But Mr. Tope frowned. “Don’t do it. Pretend you have no money.”
Hugh awkwardly refused, and with a little grimace the girl went away.
“One of the parasites of the place,” said Mr. Tope. “The Casino’s full
of them. She spotted you at once for a newcomer. She’s on the
watch for greenhorns. Now she’ll tell her sisterhood that you turned
her down, and you’ll be less pestered. Never speak to a woman you
don’t know on the floor of the Casino. In the end it will cost you
money.”
“I wonder the management doesn’t stop that sort of thing.”
“They encourage everything that speeds up the gambling. Morality
doesn’t exist as far as they are concerned. All they want is to get
your coin; and in the end they usually do.”
“Do they get yours?”
“Oh, yes, I lose sometimes. There’s a class of people who tell you
they never lose. They’re known as the liars.”
“That was a very pretty girl who spoke to me.”
“Yes. There’s a story about her. She was engaged to a Frenchman
who went to America and established himself in business. He sent
her money to buy her trousseau, and to pay her passage over. She
was crazy about him, all eagerness to join him; but she was tempted
to risk a little of the money at the tables. In the end she lost it all. She
dared not tell him, so she never answered his letters. Since then she
has lived a hectic existence. She’s an incurable gambler. A ruined
life.... But come, I want to introduce you to two of the oldest habitués
of the Rooms, veterans like myself. Mr. Galloway MacTaggart of
Strathbungo.”
Hugh was forthwith presented to a tall wiry man, who enveloped his
hand in a large dry grip. He had a grim spectacled face and thin-grey
whiskers.
“Welcome, malad,” said Mr. MacTaggart. “The Fraternal Order o’ the
Veeatic bids ye welcome tae this den o’ ineequity. And noo, if ye’ll
alloo me, I’ll present ye tae the Grand Maister, Mr. Gimp o’
Cincinnati. Mr. Gimp has the disteenction o’ bein’ the auldest
member.”
Mr. Gimp was small and wiry. He was the neatest man Hugh had
ever seen; even his eyes were neat. He had a puckered pink face,
and white silky hair like the floss of the thistle. His moustache was
like a wisp of cotton. He extracted the thumb of his right hand from
the armhole of his waistcoat and presented two fingers for Hugh to
wag solemnly.
“Gimp’s feeling peevish,” said Mr. Tope. “He’s just won five francs
and lost ten.”
“Never play the goddamn game,” snorted Mr. Gimp. “When you
catch me putting a cent on those tables, you can call me a goddamn
fool and kick me round the ‘Camembert.’”
“Well, after coming here for thirty years without missing a season
you ought to have enough of it.”
“Darned sight too much. No place for a respectable man! Never
enter the Rooms unless I’m obliged to. Just come in now to look for
a friend. A hotbed of crooks and courtesans. Yes, and spies. Look at
that damn inspector edging nearer to see if he can’t hear what we
are talking about. Bah! Look at that woman now. Why, she’d make a
rotten egg smell like a rose. Well, I can’t stand it any longer. I’m off to
breathe God’s good air. Au revoir.”
With that Mr. Gimp stalked virtuously away. “He’s always like that,”
remarked Mr. MacTaggart dryly. “An’ if ye come in the Casino an ’oor
from noo ye’ll find him smokin’ his cigarette in the atrium. He’s one o’
the fixtures o’ the place. It wouldna’ be complete withoot him. An’
there’s a whole lot mair in the same boax. A man frae Brazeel went
aff his heid in the Rooms the ither day. ‘Puir Chap!’ they were a-
sayin’, but I telt them, ‘He’s nae worse nor the rest o’ us. We’re a’
daft in this establishment.’ Whit’s yer impression o’ it, young man?”
“I’m surprised to see so many old people in the Rooms.”
“That’s right. Gamblin’s the last infirmity of ignoble minds. When folks
are ower dodderin’ for wine an’ wimmen, gamblin’s a’ that’s left tae
them. Look at that auld Bianca there. They say she wis the mistress
o’ the King o’ Italy. Whit things she must hae seen! Noo she goes
roon like a spectre mumblin’ an’ breakin’ wind every time she plays.
Weel, I’m feelin’ auld an’ tired masel. Ma nerves are no whit they
were. There’s nae doot it gets ye. It’s a crool, crool game....”
They sought the fresher air of the atrium and lighting their cigarettes
sat down on a recessed divan of padded leather.
“MacTaggart is our great hope,” said Mr. Tope. “He is patience and
pertinacity personified. He has now been sitting at the same place at
the same table from the beginning of the play to the end for two
years.”
“For three years,” said Mr. MacTaggart. “I’ve got the record o’ two
hundred thoosand consecutive coups.”
“MacTaggart claims he knows more about roulette than all the rest of
us put together.”
“So I do. Ye’re like a lot o’ children. Ye ken naethin’. When ye’ve
spent night after night for three years compilin’ an’ analyzin’
permanencies, ye’ll begin tae hae some glimmerin’ o’ the mysterious
workin’s o’ the laws o’ chance. I’ve studied the game noo for twenty
years and I’m jist beginnin’ tae know a little, a verry little.”
“Look!” said Mr. Tope, “there’s that poor little Emslie girl waiting as
usual for her mother.”
On one of the benches near the exit from the Rooms Hugh saw a
slight girl with a very sweet face. Her chestnut hair was braided