What may lie ahead for aviation in 2021?

It has been an annus horribilis for forecasters – including FlightGlobal’s. The pandemic that swept the world in the first quarter of 2020 and the ever-shifting legal restrictions on our liberty to work, shop, socialise, and travel that have followed have made predicting what might happen in aviation and elsewhere the following week, let alone in 12 months, the most inexact of sciences.

So it is in a spirit of humility – yet uplifted by the real prospect of a Covid-19 vaccine becoming widely available over the next few months – that FlightGlobal’s team turns its sights on what 2021 might hold in store. None of us know how the fight against the most economically damaging phenomenon of most of our lifetimes will go. But we dare to believe that the coming year will be better than the one just gone. Here are our 2021 forecasts.