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Departure area at Hamburg Airport: Air traffic is gradually returning to normal
Photo: Christian Charisius / dpa
The compulsory break lasted for more than a year for many pilots, and significantly fewer aircraft took off worldwide due to the corona crisis.
Now that air traffic is slowly returning to normal, the largest German insurer Allianz is warning of the risks involved.
The experts at the industrial insurer AGCS, which belongs to the Munich-based Dax group, list the potential dangers in an assessment published on Tuesday.
In addition to pilots who have received training, this also includes possible damage to the aircraft, for example nests in the engines.
The cases of angry mask refusers reported from the USA on board are also mentioned.
As far as pilots and airplanes are concerned, however, the concerns do not relate to the major airlines, but to flying with smaller aircraft, which is known in the aviation industry as "general aviation", from business flights to tourist flights to the use of rescue helicopters.
In the English-speaking world, the catchphrase "rusty pilots" is already making the rounds - rusty pilots in other words.
"If people are able to do their job little or not at all for a year and a half, the lack of practice is of course to be viewed with concern," said AGCS claims manager Till Kürschner.
Even planes and helicopters that have barely or not at all flown for months could become a safety risk.
In the USA, insects have settled in parked machines.
According to AGCS, no such cases are known from Germany.
The USA reports significantly more incidents with angry passengers
As far as commercial aviation is concerned, Allianz experts believe that angry passengers could be more of a risk than pilots or planes. In the USA, the FAA has counted a good 3100 cases of "air rage" since the beginning of the year. This means passengers who attack, threaten or insult cabin crew and fellow passengers. That was a multiple of the pre-corona numbers: in normal years there are around 150 cases.
2350 of these 3100 cases were mask refusers.
"Apparently the Americans find it harder than other compatriots to accept that there is a mask requirement," said AGCS manager Axel von Frowein, who heads the insurer's aviation business in Central and Eastern Europe.
So far, however, there have been no major aviation claims at AGCS in connection with the pandemic.
aar / dpa