It has now been more than a decade since the first edition of this publication, at a time when the aviation industry was booming. Year on year more and more people were flying than ever before, and the sky-high passenger numbers showed little sign of abating. Then in 2020 the uncontemplatable event happened with the outbreak of COVID-19. The pandemic wreaked financial devastation across the entire aviation value chain, most notably for airlines. Apart from freight forwarders and cargo airlines, all subsectors of the industry suffered massive losses. Even previously reliable value creators, such as airports and manufacturers, were not spared the pandemic’s economic impact. There’s no sugar-coating the diagnosis: the coronavirus was without doubt the most devastating event to have ever impacted the aviation industry.