The International Air Transport Association, IATA, has forecast a 90 percent collapse in air traffic due to COVID-19, putting 6.7 million jobs at risk and making the air transport industry one of the hardest hit by the pandemic

IATA said that global passenger traffic results for March 2020 showed demand (measured in total revenue passenger kilometers) dived 52.9 percent compared with the same period a year ago, adding this was "the largest decline in recent history."

Its figures showed that in March European carriers' demand fell 54.3 percent year-to-year, while capacity dropped 42.9 percent, and load factor (which measures the amount of available plane seats actually used) sank 16.8 percentage points to 67.6 percent.

As airlines seek urgent government bailouts, environmental campaigners are calling for green strings to be attached to any assistance packages. But the director general and CEO of IATA, Alexandre de Juniac, told CGTN Europe the "desperate" industry simply cannot cope with any more restrictions. 

Juniac said airlines were already doing their bit to reduce carbon emissions and "the crisis will not divert this industry from sticking to its environmental commitments."

He added: "But what we say to governments is: do not add additional constraints to your financial support package, to your bailout measures, because we are not in a position to have more constraints, more difficulties."

Asked why the airline industry in particular should get government bailouts, when several other industries have also been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic, Juniac said: "We have been among the first and probably among those who have been the most severely hit." Adding that airlines are key to economic development and "a key element for a quick and a strong recovery."

While the service industry looks at implementing social distancing measures to ease into a swift reopening and lifting of lockdown restrictions, airlines have warned these measures might lead to low-cost airlines going bankrupt. 

"If you neutralize, for instance, the center seat on each part of the aisle in the aircraft, you neutralize more than a third of the seats and you do not make any money, so I admit that it's impossible economically to operate these aircraft," Juniac said. 

"Our first statistics show that on board, there are very few contamination cases, and that we can set up measures to protect passengers from any contamination on board," he said. "So I think we can find the right compromise," he added.