What about afterwards?

[Imurg]

I've been having a more thorough ponder about this and I'm not sure I like what I've come up with.
There's talk of relaxing things in early May if things go well, maintaining social distancing.
This is likely to be fairly gentle process rather than opening everything on the Monday morning.
But how long is SD going to be necessary for.?
As a driving instructor I sit no more than 18 inches or so from my pupil - hardly distancing
With a vaccine a year or more away and hints in some circles that SD will be required until then, how am I supposed to work..?
Will the Govt prop me up for a year or more?
What about the car and the lease..? I dont need a virtually brand new car with a high lease price due to the high mileage if I'm not working but I've got it for another 18 months.
No doubt that the work will be there the moment I can restart but it's a question of how long before I can.
It's sometimes not good having too much time on your hands...the mind starts working overtime.

 

[Grant85]

There's a thread about how its affecting us now, and one on what do we miss. But what about afterwards?

For some it will be a return to normality, and I guess to most that's were it will end up. And I dare say that applies to me too. I will, in the main, go back to doing what I always do(God willing).

However, a conversation I had with a friend a few years back resonates more now than it ever has. To quote, "you can't buy time but you can fill it." The conversation revolved around golf, at the time, but is relevant to so many things. We often talked about playing the Open courses, and thankfully prior to leaving the UK we made time in our schedules and ticked a few more of those off. Those days have made for great memories.

We bought our Place in the Sun in early 2016, and we retired here early 2018. When we were out here visiting we'd stay relatively local but when we retired we, originally, cranked up some km's visiting different places, all usually just a couple of hours travel at the most. And during this time we were getting tips about places to visit. The vast majority of those tips don't appear in many guide books or travel programmes. The Spanish manana was taking over, and it was always tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow.

The day the lockdown lifts is the day the bucketlist will start to be booked. Jaen, Badajoz, Jerez, Cadiz, Huelva, Evora(Portugal) - on the way to Lisbon. There's a whole lot more hillside towns and seaside fishing villages. Sounds expensive? A decent village hotel will come in at anything from €25 a night for a room. A decent 4* spa hotel can be got from €50 a night. And a decent evening meal, away from the tourist areas, inc drinks, will come in at less than €15.

Roll on the end of lockdown!

Consequences of coronavirus.

I think we have a permanent reduction in the amount of air travel / overseas travel. Airlines will go out of business and some won't recover to Feb 2020 capacity for years, if at all. Those that remain will have bailouts to pay back and no doubt will have insurance premiums or industry protection schemes to pay into. Air Travel will become more expensive, relative to income, and a lot of business travel will be eradicated due to cost / benefit as well as better remote working / collaboration. Same for hotels.

So more shorthaul holidays and staycations.

I reckon we'll see a lot more working from home or remote working. I'd say for a lot of experienced professionals this will become more normal and likely been the push for many to get properly set up at home with the relevant software and hardware. But still likely companies will want to retain a core workforce on site in order to gain experience more quickly and to manage more closely. As well as the benefit of face to face contact in many professions.

Likely to mean a big change in the building projects that are ongoing. Fewer high rise offices. Perhaps a focus on bigger residential blocks with either more home office space or possibly a section of buildings that have self contained working spaces or desk space for people to use.

All in all I'd guess we will see the car industry also have a severe time of this the other side of the lockdown and public transport companies will find revenues also down even when back to 'normal'.

 

[Slab]

Would it be true to say the very last thing any government wants is for more of its workforce to work from home. Even a million extra that don’t spend money on commuting/traveling/buying daily starbucks etc etc, every day will cripple countless businesses that rely on people expressly not working from home

 

[Hacker Khan]

On a political level I kind of hope that we row back from the charge into unregulated disaster capitalism we seemed to be heading into with the realisation that the state still has a big role to play in the well being of the nation and the progress of society as a whole. And we as a society reassess what we value a bit. I think experts will come back into fashion, again after the realization from the government that they are needed and indeed are more trusted then just about any politician in the current crisis. Also I hope people remember which individuals/companies behaved selflessly and which ones behaved like dicks during this, and spend their money in the future accordingly. But the cynic in me thinks that come the next election most of this will be forgotten and we'll be back where we were for the past election/referendums.

On a personal level I'll go back to playing badminton twice a week, that's about it.

 

[oxymoron]

When this is over my brother and myself will be straight up to the care home that is looking after my dad being as we have not been able to see him in the flesh since this began.
While we are there we will be donating all the money we have saved from not golfing, going to football and having a few pints after the game, and the savings from not going out
to be used for the staff whether they have a night out (which i am sure they will really need ) or to go to their xmas party .
Terrifyingly this will not be a small amount ,this made me sit back and reflect how much we go through on un-necessary expenditure and certainly made me rethink how we will
live in future .Made me realize just what a consumer driven life i, and no doubt others as well , lead , quite an eye opener .

 

[pendodave]

Would it be true to say the very last thing any government wants is for more of its workforce to work from home. Even a million extra that don’t spend money on commuting/traveling/buying daily starbucks etc etc, every day will cripple countless businesses that rely on people expressly not working from home

Not only that, but is it actually good for people or companies in the long term?There's a lot to be said for getting out of the house and meeting people. I no longer work in an office, but my daughter is currently wfh, and she really misses being there with her mates.

 

[Jamesbrown]

I’m booking a table and I’ll eat myself silly somewhere. Getting bored of cooking now.

 

[trevor]

I can't imagine this being over for a long time for me. Underlying health problems mean if I catch the virus I'll be dead so whatever I do I'd have to be mega careful if and when I am allowed out. At the moment I would be happy to drive to the club and spend hours on the open air grass driving range, maybe a game with no drinks etc later but hard to imagine at the moment.

 

[Hacker Khan]

I've been having a more thorough ponder about this and I'm not sure I like what I've come up with.
There's talk of relaxing things in early May if things go well, maintaining social distancing.
This is likely to be fairly gentle process rather than opening everything on the Monday morning.
But how long is SD going to be necessary for.?
As a driving instructor I sit no more than 18 inches or so from my pupil - hardly distancing
With a vaccine a year or more away and hints in some circles that SD will be required until then, how am I supposed to work..?
Will the Govt prop me up for a year or more?
What about the car and the lease..? I dont need a virtually brand new car with a high lease price due to the high mileage if I'm not working but I've got it for another 18 months.
No doubt that the work will be there the moment I can restart but it's a question of how long before I can.
It's sometimes not good having too much time on your hands...the mind starts working overtime.

Long time possibly... https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52308201

 

[Imurg]

Long time possibly... https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52308201

That's the piece I read.......

 

[clubchamp98]

I think work wise it might be a mix of both.
Maybe face to face meetings can be arranged mon/ wed with admin done at home the other two days.
Will need some organising but if firms get on board not that difficult.
I must imagine working from home has advantages but disadvantages in equal amounts.
There needs to be a will to change our habits but selfishness is rife.

SD is going to be with us for a long time imo, but might be scaled to your health risk with the only really at risk being kept at home until a vaccine is found.
But some jobs Barber . Dentist , Imurg DI, Cant be done under SD so some form of relaxation will have to happen.
But if you are high risk your not going to learn to drive, but you will need dental treatment at some time.
It’s very difficult to know what the answer is.

 

[sunshine]

I think we have a permanent reduction in the amount of air travel / overseas travel.

Not sure about this. Certainly a reduction in the next couple of years. After that? I think human nature will take over: the desire to travel, meet people and explore is very strong. Travel will recover (eventually).

 

[nickjdavis]

No plans.

I'll just be happy if my client decides not to cancel my contract when we go back.

 

[Crazyface]

See family again, catch up, hug, drink....then GOLF

 

[Grant85]

Not sure about this. Certainly a reduction in the next couple of years. After that? I think human nature will take over: the desire to travel, meet people and explore is very strong. Travel will recover (eventually).

Yes - but the travel for leisure sector is not all of air travel.
And much of the travel for leisure is due to cheap flights and relatively cheap tourism overseas.
If those flights were dearer and tourism was cheaper closer to home, it would have an impact.

A lot of travel is business related, which i think will have a permanent reduction as businesses realise they can do even more remotely.

Air travel benefits hugely from economies of scale and on a lot of flights, business class massively subsidises economy class tickets. If you had just one or two fewer business class people per flight it would have a big knock on effect on the overall financial model.

And given the size of the industry it could be death by 1000 cuts.
* some people generally with less money
* some people worried about their future and so less inclined to book travel
* some people slightly less inclined to travel overseas
* some people with fewer relatives to see
* better value to holiday at home
* some businesses generally with less money and smaller operations
* some businesses generally much more content with remote working
* airline companies and hotels with slightly higher costs

The flip side is that a lot of people on fixed incomes (such as pensions and those who haven't been furloughed) will likely be saving a lot of cash they might otherwise have been spending on holidays, travel, eating out etc. Of course there may be an appetite for a lot of those people to book a trip overseas as soon as things open up again... but they also haven't seen their friends and family for 2 or 3 months. So why go a foreign trip when you can get huge pleasure and satisfaction seeing your family and friends at home?

 

[GreiginFife]

In light of losing my job and the market being, basically in the toilet, I have decided to restart my PC system builder business. There appears to be a strong demand for certain types of systems so maybe this will tide me over for a while until the market kicks back up.

 

[fundy]

In light of losing my job and the market being, basically in the toilet, I have decided to restart my PC system builder business. There appears to be a strong demand for certain types of systems so maybe this will tide me over for a while until the market kicks back up.

good luck with that, will be in touch when the current one kicks the bucket!

 

[GreiginFife]

good luck with that, will be in touch when the current one kicks the bucket!

Cheers Steve, I have recently kitted my garage out as a work space so at least I will have peace and quiet (and space) to be able to build at reasonable volume.

 

[chrisd]

In light of losing my job and the market being, basically in the toilet, I have decided to restart my PC system builder business. There appears to be a strong demand for certain types of systems so maybe this will tide me over for a while until the market kicks back up.

I wish you all the best, I hope you do well!

 

[sunshine]

Yes - but the travel for leisure sector is not all of air travel.
And much of the travel for leisure is due to cheap flights and relatively cheap tourism overseas.
If those flights were dearer and tourism was cheaper closer to home, it would have an impact.

A lot of travel is business related, which i think will have a permanent reduction as businesses realise they can do even more remotely.

Air travel benefits hugely from economies of scale and on a lot of flights, business class massively subsidises economy class tickets. If you had just one or two fewer business class people per flight it would have a big knock on effect on the overall financial model.

And given the size of the industry it could be death by 1000 cuts.
* some people generally with less money
* some people worried about their future and so less inclined to book travel
* some people slightly less inclined to travel overseas
* some people with fewer relatives to see
* better value to holiday at home
* some businesses generally with less money and smaller operations
* some businesses generally much more content with remote working
* airline companies and hotels with slightly higher costs

The flip side is that a lot of people on fixed incomes (such as pensions and those who haven't been furloughed) will likely be saving a lot of cash they might otherwise have been spending on holidays, travel, eating out etc. Of course there may be an appetite for a lot of those people to book a trip overseas as soon as things open up again... but they also haven't seen their friends and family for 2 or 3 months. So why go a foreign trip when you can get huge pleasure and satisfaction seeing your family and friends at home?

Long haul business class fares are maybe 5x economy. Short haul maybe 3x, so yes you are right they are a massive part of full service airlines revenue. But they make no difference to low cost carriers.

I occasionally travel on business, enough in the last 12 months to have a BA gold card. No way I'll be flying as much in the next 12-18 months, but after that? Relationships are better face to face, I think once the biological crisis has subsided, our behaviour will revert.

As for leisure travel, again in the short term people will feel nervous about travelling, but in the long term, the historical research shows that people value their summer holiday in the sun and will cut out other expenses before the holiday.

Recovery will take several years though.