Head of Emirates in Ireland shared the chances of “COVID-19 Passport”

The covid pandemic will definitely have a huge impact on the travel industry worldwide. But people will travel, says the head of Emirates in Ireland.

He said that the traveling will happen, but there will be some changes in the way it’s done.

Enda Corneille is the Emirates country manager for Ireland. The Dubai based flying machines flies to 157 different destinations all around the Globe, which includes Dublin as well. The Emirates provides a living for around 59,000 people.

“We live in a beautiful country but it’s hardly a substitute for the white sand of the Seychelles beach, the warm water of the Indian Ocean or that ‘whoosh’ of warm air when the doors of the aircraft are open in Dubai.” The head of the Emirates said.

He also said that people will focus more on and prefer one major overseas holiday trips per year rather than flying around on weekends.

“We might see a COVID passport scheme where everyone flying is all-clear, masks may continue to be required on-board,” he added.

He also said that boundaries such as not carrying liquids in hand baggage after 9/11, so people are very resilient, people know that things will have to change.

He expressed the hope of the return of overseas travel and he said that it’s a matter of when and… what it’ll look like.

“Emirates is a carrier that has made the world smaller, bringing destinations like Australia and the Far East much more accessible to Irish passengers and Irish tourists…. That’s going to continue, people like to travel.”

He said while more people are connecting remotely, business travel will also come back eventually.

“I think even since March people are getting fatigued from using Zoom and using Teams and are longing for that social contact,” he said.

“We carry a lot of customers from the aircraft leasing business really doing big deals – that’s difficult stuff to do online.

“So I think it has a role, but once companies are comfortable for their people to travel, that airlines are fulfilling their duty of care, people will travel.”

He said that the on-board facilities are all managed well where the cabin is changed in every two minutes using hospital standard filters.  

“I think you saw that when fuel began to rise, aircraft manufacturers began to focus much more on making aircraft lighter so they were more fuel efficient.

“This is another situation where manufacturers will see what can be done”.

“Over the medium-term, certainly there’s an opportunity there for innovative manufacturers to see what else can be done to again reassure customers and passengers,” he added.