I keep thinking of weird side effects of Coronavirus. LIke: with all this canceled travel, it will effectively reset a lot of frequent flyer programs, as the higher tier elites are unable to rack up enough miles to requalify.
This is obviously not important in itself (unless you're a higher tier elite, in which case--well, welcome back to the proletariat.) But it is actually going to make a big difference to airlines, who count on those loyal customers to drive them a lot of business.
This is also obviously not important compared to the potential death toll (though more important than it sounds, because odds are every government is going to be bailing out their airlines shortly, as they did after 9/11).
What it suggests is the incredibly far-reaching changes we're likely to see after all this is over. Markets will have shifted, patterns of socializing and consuming may have changed.
Even if we manage to contain this, as I pray we do, long enough to develop antiviral treatments or a vaccine, it will shape the rest of our lives.
Working remotely, as someone just pointed out to me, is sure to grow massively--and probably not everyone shifts back. Teleconferencing. Streaming services will displace movies and live performance even faster. Not inconceivable it could be the end of the handshake.
I am not sad for the higher tier elites (and no, I am definitely not one of them, for those who thought this was a whine). But it is a way to think about the fact that this virus is going to touch almost *everything*, from trivial to towering importance.
Including, maybe, ending or at least temporarily abating the great festival of class resentment that currently characterizes the modern airplane flight.
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