The airlines are proceeding with a general reduction of their flights for September and, in general, next fall, due to the lack of demand. The new restrictions and quarantines imposed by many countries have caused the expected recovery of air traffic to be frustrated by the second wave of the coronavirus. Ryanair, Easyjet, Air Europa or Air France are just some of the companies that have already announced a route cut for September, to which Vueling joined on Tuesday.
The company, which belongs to the IAG group like Iberia and British Airways, will reduce its seat offer by 20% this September compared to August, with a total of 1.76 million throughout the network, both in Spain and the rest of Europe. "To continue adapting to the current environment." After this rescheduling, it will operate a total of 208 routes and up to a maximum of 2,226 weekly flights.
Vueling will focus its offer on Spain, with 190 routes. Of these, 92 will be domestic and another 98 will operate to international destinations. The Barcelona-El Prat airport, its main hub, will maintain an offer similar to that of August, with 79 direct routes and 1,378 weekly flights: 24 will be domestic and 55 will connect with international cities.
It follows in this way in the footsteps of Ryanair, the first low-cost airline in Europe and one of its major competitors, which last week announced that it will reduce its flight offer by 20% during the months of September and October due to the drastic reduction in Bookings.
Its main rival for low-cost flights, easyJet, will close its British bases in Southend, Stansted and Newcastle on August 31, canceling all flights that departed from the first airport and reducing those that flew from the other two. The decision will also mean 4,500 layoffs. Finnish Finnair also announced on Tuesday that it has started negotiations on its plan to cut up to 1,000 jobs and undertake another 1,800 temporary layoffs out of a total workforce of 6,700.
For its part, Air France has taken advantage of the agreement with its subsidiary Transavia to reduce by 40% the internal lines between Paris and the airports of Biarritz, Pau or Montpellier.
Air Europe
In Spain, Air Europa has canceled all departures scheduled for September to and from Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Paraguay and Peru, although it will carry out weekly repatriation flights in all these countries. At the moment, it maintains the rest of the long-haul flights that it reincorporated to its programming to Guayaquil, Miami, New York, Quito, San Pedro Sula, Santo Domingo and São Paulo.
Iberia, for its part, is for now cautious and maintains flights to fifty countries. She admits, however, that she has to make daily adjustments and will be aware of the evolution of demand.
And it is that the outbreaks and unilateral establishment of quarantines or negative recommendations to travel between different countries has caused post-pandemic programming to explode, due to the cancellation of reservations and the lack of demand. In fact, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) estimates that global passenger traffic will not return to pre-covid-19 levels until 2024, a year later than previously forecast. Additionally, for 2020, global passenger numbers are projected to decline by 55% compared to 2019, worsening from the April forecast of 46%. In 2021 it will still be 30% below.
