Air travellers account for less than one per cent of all detected Covid-19 cases and do not increase the rate of virus transmission – that was the verdict of a report published this week by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) and European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA).
It is the latest in a long line of reports and studies attempting to restore confidence in air travel, clear its name as a conduit of the virus, and have quarantine restrictions reduced or removed.
Various aviation bodies were quick to draw conclusions from the report.
“These guidelines unequivocally show quarantines to be essentially politically-driven, non-risk-based measures which bear no relation to what is actually needed to safeguard public health,” said Olivier Jankovec, director general of airports organisation ACI Europe.
Airlines for Europe and IATA both renewed their calls for pre-departure testing as a means to restore air travel, although the latter organisation notably did not recall its own research issued in October that suggested a passenger’s chances of catching Covid onboard were as likely as being struck by lightning, or one in 27 million.
The veracity of that particular research was called into question by many commentators, not least by Dr David Freedman whose work was cited in the IATA report but described the figures as “bad math” and declined to take part in publicity around the publication.
The University of Alabama infectious disease specialist said: "1.2 billion passengers during 2020 is not a fair denominator because hardly anybody was tested. How do you know how many people really got infected? The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."
Another recent report contradicted IATA's claims, detailing the inflight infection of 13 passengers on a 7.5-hour flight into Ireland.
Published in European infectious disease journal Eurosurveillance, it said the commercial flight had 48 passengers and 12 crew on a plane with 283 seats.
Nine of the infected passengers were wearing masks, one – a one-year-old – was not, with status unknown for the other three.
The passengers were from three different continents, all connecting at a "large international airport" for the flight to Ireland. Neither the airline, flight origin or destination nor the exact date of the flight were specified.
The report links further spread to 46 more people in Ireland from the 13 passengers.
In the US, meanwhile, a study by Harvard University's public health school found the risk of inflight Covid-19 transmission is low, provided passengers remain masked throughout the flight and maintain social distancing when boarding and deplaning.
The study, sponsored by a consortium of airlines, aircraft manufacturers and airport operators, indicated that airlines' air-circulation practices are effective at virus filtration and echoed results of a US Transportation Command study.
"Our team found that, together with their high-performing ventilation systems, the actions that the airlines put in place – including mandatory use of face masks – significantly reduce risks of viral transmission aboard an airplane," said the university’s Aviation Public Health Initiative’s co-director Leonard Marcus said in a statement.
"With comprehensive adherence to these preventive measures by airlines and passengers, air travel, along with other sectors of society, can responsibly return to some level of normal activity as we await development of an effective vaccine."
The study examined current airline transmission mitigation efforts and modelled inflight virus transmission to reach its conclusions.
It cited universal mask-wearing – save for brief periods of eating and drinking – maintaining social distancing while boarding and deplaning, providing pre-flight passenger health attestations and maintaining hand cleanliness as key measures to limit inflight virus spread.
Researchers considered the gate-to-gate inflight experience for this phase of the study; a second phase will examine the "curb-to-curb" experience.
The industry is awash with reports and research, but are would-be air travellers more inclined to listen to research from
those not invested in the aviation industry’s desperately needed
recovery?
With the widespread availability of various vaccines on the horizon, maybe the notion that such research will soon become irrelevant isn't complete pie in the sky.