Rome: Air traffic is booming this summer, but will passenger demand keep pace with the end of European holidays? That question has been the focus of Airports Council International (ACI) Europe’s annual conference in Rome this week, which will take place at the end of the upcoming high season. The summer period is shaping up to be the best ever since the start of the coronavirus crisis that has severely affected the airline industry since 2020. Some airlines, such as Ryanair, and countries, especially Greece, have already recovered or even gone beyond it. According to Eurocontrol, a European air traffic agency, the daily flight for 2019 is No.
Eurocontrol said air traffic across the continent, last week, rose 86% compared to the same period in 2019, and is expected to reach 95% in August according to its most optimistic estimates. Despite skyrocketing ticket prices, long queues at various airports from Frankfurt to Dublin to Amsterdam, and strikes by flight attendants, pilots or air traffic controllers, companies are filling seats for weeks to come.
But then?
“Vision is poor because there is a lot of uncertainty,” said Olivier Jankovic, director general of ACI Europe. “Now we’re in a war economy in Europe, we have the potential for a fairly severe recession, we have inflation at record levels, so how is all of this going to affect consumer sentiment… the jury is still out.” This view was echoed by the Director-General of Transport and Mobility at the European Commission, Henrik Hololi. “We really need to tighten seat belts because there will be a lot of disruption,” he told delegates. “We are entering … a period of uncertainty that we have not seen before in the last decade,” he said. This is definitely the biggest enemy of business.”
Lots of unknowns
Holly chronicled the war in Ukraine, rising energy prices and shortages of energy, food and employment. “We also have a rate hike for the first time in a decade,” he said. The price of jet fuel more than doubled in the past year, driven by an explosion in crude oil prices coupled with a lack of refining capacity. Fuel accounts for nearly a quarter of airlines’ operating costs, which has cost consumers their ticket prices as they seek to replenish safes deriving from a two-year health crisis.
Eleni Kaluero, Managing Director of Hermes Airports, which operates Larnaca and Paphos airports in Cyprus, as the high tourist season runs until November, confirmed, however, strong demand has returned. “People want to take their vacations,” she said, though she admitted, “we’re worried regarding next year.” The general manager of Athens International Airport, Yiannis Parachis, similarly expressed concerns that “increasing energy costs and inflation will consume a large proportion of the disposable income of European families”.
The head of Istanbul International Airport, Kadri Samsanlu, has expressed concern regarding the impact of inflation in Western Europe. He cautioned that if consumer confidence is damaged, “we don’t know what will happen to the claim.” The latest anonymous comment on European air travel in the medium term is a possible new outbreak of the coronavirus. “Covid has not gone away, not even the seasonal flu,” Holywalli warned. – France Press agency
