BUSINESS NEWS


Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary (left) and Delta’s Ed Bastian have highlighted


the impact of White House policies on aircraft costs and delivery schedules


Easter getaway defies global economic turmoil


Analysis: Uncertainty for sector relates mostly to future seasons, says Ian Taylor


Abta estimated 2.2 million UK holidaymakers headed abroad over a busy Easter weekend, marking a 10% increase on a year ago and suggesting little impact on leisure travel from the market turmoil and deteriorating economic forecasts triggered by President Trump. Stock markets soared when


Trump was re-elected in November but are now subject to the whiplash impacts of one White House policy announcement after another. Deloitte UK chief economist Ian Stewart last week described markets


48 24 APRIL 2025


as “edgy” and Bank of England deputy governor Sara Breeden summarised the effect of US trade policy on business as “chilling”. In so far as Trump and those


around him have a coherent strategy, it is to renegotiate the relationship between the US and its allies and decouple the US from China’s economy. The way they have gone about it risks the stability of the international monetary system underpinned by the dollar. As The Economist magazine noted last week, the dollar “is meant to be a


source of safety” and American assets “the keystones of global finance”. Instead, they have become “a cause of fear”, triggering “upheaval that pushes the financial system into the unknown”. Travel can’t escape the fallout,


although the impacts won’t all be one way. A weakening dollar – the pound was valued at $1.34 on Tuesday – could stimulate demand for the US, and a falling oil price could lower fares by winter as airline fuel hedging unwinds.


Continued on page 46 travelweekly.co.uk


BUSINESSNEWS


PICTURES: Shutterstock/MattariStudio, Alexandros Michailidis


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