Replay. Layover with a Special Guest. An Interview with Paul Papadimitriou.
Description
Vinod and Geoff hope to have a new experience recorded and posted soon. Until then, we present a replay of our very popular experience with guest host Paul Papadimitriou - from the Layovers podcast. In the experience, Paul mentions a previous Seat 1A recording - that would have been experience 36.
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In this experience we are extremely fortunate to have an incredible guest and extend warm greetings to Paul Papadimitriou. Paul is a global keynote speaker, futurist and TV/Radio/Stage host based in London, UK. Avgeek podcast listeners will also know Paul from the Layovers podcast.
We review our personal states and look back to the start of the year to our last flights. Do our realities mean that we need to fly at this point? Paul had very classy last flight – but is looking forward to flying again. Vinod's last flight was a short Canadian domestic flight. Geoff's last international flight was a short cross-border flight into the US. Vinod has had to postpone a flight to Tokyo for the Olympics. Paul had to cancel a number of flights including one to Barcelona. Paul shares his emotional attachment to Narita and looks at business travel these days in Japan. Everyone takes a moment to share their love for Narita. Geoff had to cancel plans for a Yukon and Alaska trek.
It's been a while since Paul's last podcast recording – don't worry folks he's coming back soon. 2019 was the end of a golden age in travel – who knows there might be more in the future.
When the pandemic started, many in the aviation industry were in denial about what could happen – and unfortunately, it lasted far longer than just the short term. Did we make a mistake by calling the infections "waves"? Should we have looked at the pandemic like a series of forest fires? Geoff comments about the internal Canadian travel bubble in its Atlantic provinces. Lockdown – it means different things to different people, but Europe will be in some form of it until March 2021. Vinod shares the experience of his in-laws first facing the virus in Taiwan, and the challenges when they returned to Canada. Each country has a level of risk they want to take with quarantine.
We move back to aviation and ask when Paul realized he was passionate about aviation. Paul shares information on how he met his Layovers co-host Alex Hunter and started the podcast. Geoff shares the connection he had in his youth with planes on final approaches. Vinod shares his Asian long-haul experiences from when he was an infant. Paul looks back on growing up in Geneva, with visits to the US on those LOUD PLANES!
We move back to the reality of where we are today. Quite simply fix the virus, fix the economy, fix travel. And unfortunately, even if all the avgeeks flew, we wouldn't get back to 2019 levels. We're having déjà vu in Europe – it's like it's March all over. Business travellers aren't travelling and the path to recovery looks a long way off. How will city state hub airlines manage since they don’t have a domestic market? Low-cost carriers in the US and EU have a much better financial position than traditional carriers. Asia will have a different recovery. And while we are trying to recover, we'll need to make sure that we don't run short of reagents. What will happen with Tokyo's Olympics? What will happen with the need for qualifying events? How will this align with new Japanese entry requirements? What will be the order of re-opening? When will tourism travel return? What will it look like since airlines are reducing their long-range planes? What would a global framework look like? Are we going to need health visas? Is the entire world going to feel like an emerging market passport? How will recover vary between large and small countries? Are people ready to fly? Will comorbidity stop being a buzzword at some point? Will people ever learn the difference between proximal a