With rising uncertainty and tourists being deterred from booking trips abroad because of new quarantine rules and warnings over rising infection rates, the recovery plans for the travel industry of Europe has was hit in August after it surged in the previous month.
With Europeans starting to travel again after months of lockdown, the ticket numbers for cross-border air travel within Europe in July was at 29 per cent of the total tickets for the same month in 2019.
But according to data from the travel analysis group ForwardKeys, that volume of air tickets dropped to 18 per cent by the first week of August.
On July 26, quarantine rules for arrivals from Spain was brought back by Britain after just two weeks since announcing that travelling to Spain was safe. And France, Croatia and Austria were then added on to that quarantine list so far in August giving only two days notice to travelers to return back or face quarantine measures.
Warning against travelling to Spain or regions within it because of increasing novel coronavirus infection cases were was also issued by governments of Austria, Sweden and Germany, that has created further uncertainty and had dashed the hopes of the airline industry to stage a strong recovery.
Its bookings were already been being affected by the new restrictions, said Europe’s biggest airline by passenger numbers, Ryanair, on Monday, while announcing plans of a reduction in flight capacity for September and October.
Olivier Ponti, vice president at ForwardKeys, said that looking ahead, tickets issued for the fourth quarter for intra-Europe air travel are down 70 per cent on last year.
He said that under the changes situation of travelling, people are now making plans much later compared to what they did last year as well as searching for flights and booking tickets much closer to their intended date of departure.
“Only travel if you are content to unexpectedly 14-day quarantine if required”, Britain’s transport minister Grant Shapps on Thursday warned on Twitter.
An uphill battle to fill their planes and get people travelling again is faced by airlines in the wake of such warnings.
“Consumer confidence has been shattered by waves and waves of cancellations, uncertainties regarding refunds, swift changes regarding travel restrictions from one day to the next, and that’s something that is hampering recovery,” Ponti said.
(Source:www.reuters.com)
With Europeans starting to travel again after months of lockdown, the ticket numbers for cross-border air travel within Europe in July was at 29 per cent of the total tickets for the same month in 2019.
But according to data from the travel analysis group ForwardKeys, that volume of air tickets dropped to 18 per cent by the first week of August.
On July 26, quarantine rules for arrivals from Spain was brought back by Britain after just two weeks since announcing that travelling to Spain was safe. And France, Croatia and Austria were then added on to that quarantine list so far in August giving only two days notice to travelers to return back or face quarantine measures.
Warning against travelling to Spain or regions within it because of increasing novel coronavirus infection cases were was also issued by governments of Austria, Sweden and Germany, that has created further uncertainty and had dashed the hopes of the airline industry to stage a strong recovery.
Its bookings were already been being affected by the new restrictions, said Europe’s biggest airline by passenger numbers, Ryanair, on Monday, while announcing plans of a reduction in flight capacity for September and October.
Olivier Ponti, vice president at ForwardKeys, said that looking ahead, tickets issued for the fourth quarter for intra-Europe air travel are down 70 per cent on last year.
He said that under the changes situation of travelling, people are now making plans much later compared to what they did last year as well as searching for flights and booking tickets much closer to their intended date of departure.
“Only travel if you are content to unexpectedly 14-day quarantine if required”, Britain’s transport minister Grant Shapps on Thursday warned on Twitter.
An uphill battle to fill their planes and get people travelling again is faced by airlines in the wake of such warnings.
“Consumer confidence has been shattered by waves and waves of cancellations, uncertainties regarding refunds, swift changes regarding travel restrictions from one day to the next, and that’s something that is hampering recovery,” Ponti said.
(Source:www.reuters.com)
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