TRENDS REPORT
Fast Future foresees slow restart
Rohit Talwar, Chief Executive Officer, Fast Future
Rohit Talwar, global futurist and Chief Executive Officer of Fast Future, discusses the four possible ways the industry can recover from the pandemic based on scenario planning by JANE HOBSON
A
s uncertainty about the future seemingly seeps into every corner of the industry, research and insights firm Fast Future has been examining what kind of restart is most likely. In May, PAX International spoke with Fast Future Chief Executive Officer Rohit Talwar about four possible ways the industry may emerge from the pandemic. The report that presents the four scenarios, called COVID10 Air Transport Near Term Impacts and Scenarios, is the first installment of a four-part joint-study by Fast Future, Future Travel Experience (FTE), and the Airline Passenger Experience Association (APEX) entitled Air Transport 2035. The visions were created using scenario planning, Talwar tells PAX, which is a futurist technique that involves identifying the most significant forces at play, which have the highest impact and the highest uncertainty. From there, the partners developed stories based on these factors about how the future might play out. In the study, Fast Future narrows down industry collaboration and economic recovery as the two major factors. Talwar notes that neither force specifically pertains to the pandemic
because travelers will fly even if the pandemic is spreading, which has already been seen in the US, making it a less important influencer. From here, the four scenarios are born: Survival of the Safest, Hope and Glory, Sealed and Secure and Love in a Cold Climate.
Survival of the Safest
This potential scenario incorporates fragmented and disjointed industry collaboration and a deep global recession or depression. In this outcome, Talwar says the industry stands to see some airlines failing and airports closing down. The survivors are the ones with strong end-to-end safety measures which convince passengers that they will not be at risk while traveling. In his estimation, this is where the industry is now.
Hope and Glory
Here, there is economic recovery but the industry does not coordinate. Players that do the best in managing the entire passenger journey and work with key partners are the ones most likely to experience glory and by 2022 or 2023 see numbers similar to those that were seen at the end of 2019, he adds.
This scenario planning graph by Fast Future depicts four possible outcomes for the industry based on the two main driving factors, industry collaboration and economic recovery
24  JUNE 2020
