Will 2022 be the year of relaunch for air transport?
Willie Walsh, managing director of Iata, which federates 190 airlines, prefers to give a point of view rather than numerical forecasts.
“
The trend is quite positive
,” he says.
Travel restrictions are starting to ease.
And when the bans are lifted, the underlying demand for travel is expressed.
This was seen in South Africa where ticket reservations, down 90% in early December, had risen by twenty points in mid-January.
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The slow relaunch of air transport
Olivier Jankovec, managing director of ACI, which brings together European airports, is not much more specific: “
The uncertainties about the evolution of the pandemic remain significant and limit visibility at best to a few months
”, he underlines. .
One thing is certain, the Omicron variant, if it does not wreak the feared havoc on activity, delays recovery.
Ten days ago, airline bookings were down 55% compared to 2019, compared to a drop of 50% in December and 55% in November.
A sluggish start to the year
"
The first quarter will be disappointing
," said Olivier Jankovec.
This sluggish start to the year comes after a disappointing financial year.
With the vaccination, everyone hoped for a vigorous resumption of activity.
Alas, in 2021, air traffic was still down 58.4% compared to 2019. There is definitely an improvement, compared to 2020 when the decline was 65.8%.
But this reboot was tentative.
European airports, for their part, only found 41% of their 2019 passengers last year. In question: international flights reduced to the bare minimum.
They were still down 75% worldwide in 2021.
Domestic flights were doing better (-28.2%) but with large disparities depending on the country: thus, in Australia, activity
was sluggish (-62.4%), while in the United States, the decline was limited to
23.8%.
