Routes
an increase in customer demand, by expanding our Caribbean portfolio,” the spokesperson adds. “Our new services aim to respond to the pent-up demand from consumers looking to head off on relaxing holidays to sunny Caribbean destinations.” Several budget airlines, keen for a slice of the pie, are also looking to enter the lucrative transatlantic market. JetBlue, the sixth-largest airline in the US, launched its New York to London service in August, and now sees two flights a day from New York to Heathrow and Gatwick Airports. CEO Robin Hayes has said JetBlue wants to have a “disruptive and permanent effect” on long-haul travel. “As the UK opens to travellers coming from America, our flights are well timed to meet the pent- up demand for travel between our two countries. We look forward to welcoming UK travellers to the US soon and launching service between Boston and London next year,” he continued.
Another contender is Norse Atlantic Airways, a Norwegian start-up expected to take to the skies by the second quarter of 2022. The carrier will focus exclusively on low-cost transatlantic flights, which in the first instance will fly from Oslo, London and Paris to New York, Los Angeles and Fort Lauderdale. According to CEO Bjorn Tore Larson, the airline will be positioning itself more for leisure travel than for business. “Our typical traveller won’t necessarily be the typical businessman going from A to B. It will be to a greater extent the family of four going for a long vacation to Florida, or a week to New York, or visiting friends and family, students. So, we will ensure that travel is affordable for more people than it is today,” he told journalists in August 2021.
A question of confidence
It seems that for anyone looking to travel to and from the US, the airlines themselves are more than ready. The big unknown remains the passengers. For sure, many EU citizens – not least those with loved ones in the US – will have booked transatlantic flights at the earliest opportunity. But what about the holidaymakers and business travellers who would have flown pre-pandemic, but might have reservations in our current climate? Reynaert remarks that anticipating air travel demand is a complex process, even in non-Covid times, and that today’s unprecedented circumstances are making that even more challenging than normal. “EU citizens are eager to start travelling again, but ensuring confidence that the rules will remain stable is key in this context,” he says. “Our member airlines are also proposing flexible booking policies, and supporting travellers to make it easy to travel once again.”
He points out that, while A4E’s member airlines will continue to apply health and safety measures
Future Airport /
www.futureairport.com
as long as needed, different countries need to align their requirements and provide certainty to passengers. “Travellers want to avoid quarantine when they return home, so we need the rules to be clearly established and communicated to passengers in advance,” he says. “We have repeatedly demonstrated that with the numerous measures in place, flying remains a safe way to travel.”
According to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), the EU’s travel restrictions haven’t had a significant impact on Covid cases, hospitalisations or deaths. If this line of thinking filters through to the average traveller, there’s every chance of restoring stability to this badly shaken market. Raynaert thinks it’s too soon to say how much air traffic will recover, especially factoring in non- Covid-related woes like rising oil prices, increasing infrastructure costs and low load factors. “Although recovery in international air travel will be uneven, we hope that business travel will see some rebound in 2022,” he says. “For European airlines we certainly don’t expect a full recovery on transatlantic flights in 2022, but much will depend on the evolution of the pandemic and whether vaccination continues to protect us collectively.” The Virgin Atlantic spokesperson is more sanguine about prospects, remarking that the reopening of the transatlantic corridor marks an important step in our collective recovery from the pandemic. “The UK will now be able to strengthen ties with our most important economic partner, the US, boosting trade and tourism as well as reuniting friends, families and business colleagues,” they say. What 2022 will look like is impossible to predict. But the smart money says we’ll see brighter times for carriers and would-be passengers on both sides of the Atlantic. ●
The reopening of lucrative UK-US routes has been a lifeline for Heathrow Airport.
95.5% The drop in
Heathrow passengers travelling to or from North America between April 2020 and March 2021.
Heathrow Airport 37
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Shutterstock.com
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