BUSINESS NEWS
Wizz Air chief questions EU’s efforts to coordinate
Ian Taylor
The head of a major airline has questioned how successful EU efforts to coordinate the lifting of border restrictions around Europe will be and the effectiveness of the Digital Covid Certificate. Jozsef Varadi, chief executive
of Wizz Air, denounced the EU as “totally uncoordinated on anything to do with the pandemic” over the past 15 months and said “we’ll see whether it succeeds” now. Varadi argued: “The EU as a
framework collapsed in the pandemic. Every government has been pursuing its own agenda unrelated to its neighbours. We’ll see how successful the EU green certificate is going to be.” The EU originally named its
Covid certificate scheme a ‘green certificate’ before changing it to a Digital Covid Certificate. Speaking as Wizz announced a
loss of €576 million for its financial year to the end of March, Varadi said: “One issue is which vaccination qualifies [for the certificate]. [But] the bigger issue is that over the last
Wizz Air’s Jozsef Varadi
15 months the EU has been totally uncoordinated on pretty much anything to do with the pandemic. This would be the first big initiative. We’ll see whether it succeeds.” He noted: “It’s still advisory as
opposed to mandatory on countries.” The EU has specified that only
vaccinations with EU-recognised vaccines will be recognised and it will be up to member states to determine how they use the certificate. Varadi suggested travel restrictions
would continue to vary, arguing: “It’s a fair assumption non-EU governments will be more restrictive than the EU. We’ll see how the EU green pass will
evolve and what relevance it will have.” The EU launched a Digital Covid
Certificate Gateway last week and several member states including Greece, Germany and Croatia began issuing certificates. The certificates will come into use on July 1 and member states have until August 12 to begin issuing and accepting them. Separately, Iata director general
Willie Walsh called for standardised testing requirements. He said: “We’ve seen 15 different requirements on testing among the 27 member states. It would be helpful if the EU could adopt a common standard or a system of mutual recognition.”
Airports body ACI Europe predicts summer of ‘chaos’
European airports association ACI Europe warned of “widespread chaos” at airports this summer due to Covid-19 requirements. It pointed out “rules remain
largely unaligned and unstable” across Europe and forecast travellers could spend hours at airports waiting to be processed, echoing a recent warning by Iata. ACI Europe forecast monthly
passenger traffic would treble to 125 million between early June and August and pose “an unprecedented operational challenge” despite numbers remaining well down on 2019. The association said a
combination of space-constrained facilities, a concentration of traffic at peak times and multiple Covid-19 checks would create chaos, warning social distancing and increased passenger processing times would add to the disruption. ACI Europe noted airports are
“designed to accommodate large passenger volumes” but said: “That becomes extremely challenging when capacity is reduced as a result of physical distancing and seamless operational processes are no longer possible due to Covid checks.”
Pata revises down forecast visitor numbers for 2021
The Pacific Asia Travel Association (Pata) has warned members to “shelve expectations of a return to the past” after revising its forecasts for tourism’s recovery across the region. Pata warned of “a hard year
travelweekly.co.uk
ahead” in its latest forecast, with recovery largely postponed until 2022 and visitor numbers likely to return “in a very uneven fashion”. The association issued new
forecasts for international travel to the 39 destinations and three sub- regions it covers, noting international arrivals in 2020 were slightly higher than previously reported at 126.5 million, down 82% on 2019. However, rather than predict a partial recovery this year, Pata
warned: “These losses are forecast to continue throughout 2021 for most sub-regions under all scenarios.” The exception could be Asia where
a recovery in the Chinese market is tipped to drive a partial recovery.
The association envisages fresh
declines almost everywhere this year compared with 2020, with visitor numbers forecast to reach just 23% of the 2019 volume “at best”. International arrivals in 2022 are forecast to increase to between 27% and 61% of 2019 levels. New Pata chief executive Liz
Ortiguera said: “More attention should be paid to source and destination markets best preparing to drive recovery.”
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