Issue Summary

It was New Year’s Day when reports first began surfacing of a mysterious SARS-like virus spreading in the Chinese city of Wuhan. Nearly two months later, public health officials are still struggling to contain the outbreak, deploying tactics that have largely frozen the entire Chinese economy. Air travel, unsurprisingly, is dramatically down, hitting not just Chinese or even just Asian airlines, but all carriers with heavy Asian exposure. Air France/KLM and Qantas both gave financial damage assessments that reach into the hundreds of millions of dollars. IATA sees the Covid-19 virus shock erasing nearly $30b from industry revenues this year.…