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Desire for the load: The freight business is developing well despite Corona
Photo: Z1005 Waltraud Grubitzsch/ dpa
The international airline association IATA is calling for the relaxation of corona travel restrictions in air traffic.
The pandemic is about to become endemic.
Travel restrictions such as testing and quarantine requirements have not proven to be an effective way to ward off the infection, but are causing enormous damage to the economy, said IATA boss Willie Walsh.
Governments should focus on increasing popular immunity and no longer impeding the return to normal with travel barriers.
Walsh also gave examples: France and Great Britain had already relaxed the conditions.
"We hope others will follow."
According to data from IATA, passenger aviation worldwide slowly recovered last year from the shock of the first corona year 2020. The volume demanded in 2021 was almost 42 percent of the pre-crisis level of 2019, measured in passenger kilometers.
In 2020, this value was still 34 percent.
Omicron less bad than feared
Passenger traffic in 2021 was 75.5 percent below 2019 levels. The emergence of the virus variant omicron slowed the upward trend from December, but not as much as feared, Walsh said.
Governments have already withdrawn some of the tightened restrictions.
Meanwhile, air freight experienced a boom.
This has had a brilliant year, Walsh summed up.
The demanded capacity even exceeded the pre-crisis level of 2019 by 6.9 percent.
However, the capacity offered remained eleven percent below the volume of 2019 due to the lack of additional loading options in passenger aircraft. This drove up freight rates and mitigated the airlines’ losses in the passenger flight business.
In December, freight prices were 150 percent higher than the same month two years ago, according to IATA.
The economic situation is spurring on the freight business.
Because world trade and industrial production have recently increased.
Since many suppliers are under time pressure, air freight could continue to hold its own against competing sea freight.
mamk/Reuters