This week’s broadcast of Eye on Travel continues from New York. When are you flying again? In an extended conversation, Peter talks with Southwest Airlines CEO, Gary Kelly, about how the nation’s largest passenger carrier is surviving the crisis and planning for the future — and adapting to the new flying experience. Then, a report on the devastating economic impact that Covid-19 is having on the Caribbean, from Jamaica Minister of Tourism Edmund Bartlett. Arnie Weissmann,Travel Weekly Editor-in-Chief, on the reopening strategies of destinations around the world, starting with Las Vegas. And Peter answers your questions — and there are a lot of them — on travel in the age of coronavirus. There’s all this and more on this week’s broadcast of Eye on Travel.

Gary Kelly, CEO of Southwest Airlines, helps Peter open the program by speaking about the impact Covid-19 has had on the aviation industry – and on Southwest in particular. He discusses the millions of jobs associated with travel and tourism and aerospace, making radical changes to reflect the current demand and his prognosis on when things will return to normal. He also shares details on the company’s plans to retire aircraft and why it’s planning on becoming a smaller airline in the near-term. Gary also addresses the chairman of Boeing’s comments on Southwest not surviving the pandemic and what steps the airline is taking to keep passengers safe.

Edmund Bartlett, Jamaica Minister of Tourism, speaks about the economic impact of the coronavirus on Jamaica’s tourism industry and the whole Caribbean. For the first time in his recollection, he saw zero people coming for vacation to the island. The economy of the Caribbean on average is easily 20% to 25% in the travel and tourism sector. Another 10% of the economy is impacted by indirect dollars coming in from tourism.  He believes that small countries in particular will be challenged to manage the new process that will come in order to ensure a safe and secure experience for visitors. We are emerging into a “living with COVID” situation that will bring with it a new series of protocols influenced by health security.

Arnie Weissmann, Editor-in-Chief of Travel Weekly, discusses destinations’ plans to reopen. He begins by focusing on Las Vegas’s reopening strategy for the summer, which will be based on the governor’s okay. They are looking at everything from equipment to sanitizing betting chips, dealers controlling chips so customers don’t have to touch them, and everything beyond that implementation. Then, there are the crowds, which are part of the experience but will now be reduced. He thinks there will be a transition period where new protocols are put in place, but things will gradually return to normal. With new discoveries, practices may become permanent.

James Moses, President & CEO of Road Scholar, describes the impact of the coronavirus on its non-profit education-based company and the ways that it’s still serving the travel community. Refunds are close to $30 million in the last two months. He says people are still invested in the company and the trips they’ve planned, with over 50% of people opting for Road Scholar to keep their deposits and rebooking for future trips up to a year in advance. Two thousand people have enrolled in programs that are four to five hours from where they live. Although the majority of people are booking trips close to home, they still received over 1,000 bookings for future trips outside of the U.S. So although the numbers are lower, the interest in international travel is still there.

Patrick Smith, Airline Pilot, Air Travel Blogger and Author of Cockpit Confidential, talks about the shift from a worldwide airline pilot shortage to a shortage of jobs for pilots as flights reduce because of Covid-19. He encourages young pilots and says that the impacts of the pandemic will be temporary and to stick with their career paths. Then, he speaks about the airline bailout, which he says is a misnomer because it’s only a salary cover for airline workers running through the end of the summer. This is only a fraction of a carrier’s costs. One of the biggest changes we are seeing in the airline industry is the consolidation of routes and dropping service to secondary cities. Some of these routes may never return.