Closed borders, restrictions on mobility and a general uncertainty not conducive to making travel projects: the Omicron variant Covid-19 could spoil the start of 2022 for European air travel, which believed it had weathered the worst of a historic crisis.
Noting a “sudden” slowdown in bookings, Ryanair, the largest European airline in terms of number of passengers, warned on Wednesday night that its annual losses would most likely be double what was expected, due to the impact of this new variant , more contagious.
“The Omicron variant of Covid and consequently recent restrictions on travel in Europe our reservations for Christmas and New Years have significantly decreased, “said the airline.
This is primarily the result of the ban on travelers who have no good reason to travel from the UK to France and Germany and to the border closure from Morocco
Beyond reservations, the effects of Ómicron on European air traffic are still not entirely clear.
According to the supervisory body Eurocontrol, which accounts for aircraft movements, these have experienced a continuous increase before the Christmas holiday season, reaching 76.3% of the traffic in 2019 (that is, before the pandemic) on December 19. .
Eurocontrol, which expected an average traffic of 80% in the second half of December, was cautious in the evolution, considering that “the consequences (of Ómicron) for January are still not clear”.
This opinion coincides with that of the International Air Transport Association (THERE IT IS), which has almost 300 member companies, and states that it is too early to assess the effect of the new variant on the sector.
However, its CEO, Willie Walsh, had warned in early December that the restrictions imposed by omicron “endanger the global air connection, which took so long to recover.”
The association of airports Europeans, ICA Europe, for its part, used a more alarmist tone this Thursday.
Operational headache
Citing preliminary data, he calculated that passenger traffic decreased by 20% at his adherents’ facilities as of November 24, when the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that it had identified this new variant in South Africa.
At the same time, the aircraft occupancy rate fell from 66% to 54%, according to ACI Europe, which, however, like Eurocontrol, noted an increase in passenger flow at the beginning of the Christmas season (+9 % for a week).
But, for the general director of this organization, Olivier Jankovec, only trips to “visit family or friends are more or less maintained.”
On the other hand, business and tourism trips are collapsing, as a result of extreme uncertainty and the prospect of more restrictions, “between countries that have tightened the conditions for entering their territory and others that have reestablished confinements.”
Once the holidays are over, “there is no doubt that omicron will have adverse consequences for passenger traffic during the first quarter of 2022,” Jankovec worries.
Both ACI Europe and IATA, as well as the European airline organization, Airlines for Europe, have voiced their opposition to the travel restrictions, pointing out in unison with the WHO that they are ineffective once the variant has spread widely among the population.
But omicron also causes operational headaches for companies: Scandinavian SAS and German Lufthansa were forced to cancel several flights due to having many sick employees.
This new cold wave over the sector falls when it was expected that its customer recovery would continue in 2022, two years after suffering the worst crisis in its history, although it was not expected to return to the pre-covid situation before 2024, and even 2027, depending on the region.
Investments in new aircraft resumed, in particular with a giant order for 100 medium-range Airbusses last week from Air France-KLM, something that reflects the confidence of the sector in the medium and long term.
Even before identifying itself with omicron, IATA had already warned that European airlines would close 2021 with a loss of 20.9 billion dollars (about 18.5 billion euros), and predicts that the red numbers will continue in 2022, with 9.2 billion dollars (8,130 million euros) of loss.
Reference-www.eleconomista.com.mx