Air traffic in Europe would take years to recover

Spread the love

Read Time:2 Minute, 0 Second

In Europe, the aviation industry is also starting to recover. However, the recovery is still hesitant. Recovery is expected to take years.

With the Corona impact, the aviation industry in Europe has also embarked on a course of recovery. However, data from Eurocontrol, the European air navigation service provider, show that the recovery is tentative. The industry expects that it will take years for airlines and airports to recover from the pandemic. After minus 80 percent at the beginning of the year and minus 70 percent after Easter, the number of flights in Austria is currently 60 percent below 2019 levels.

Air traffic on the rise again in Europe
Across Europe, air traffic is currently on the rise. Eurocontrol recorded an increase of 17 percent in the past two weeks. Especially in the vacation countries on the Mediterranean Sea, the number of flights recently increased significantly. Eurocontrol reports an increase of 51 percent for Greece, 42 percent for Italy and 24 percent for Spain. However, the three countries are also still far from the pre-crisis level, when more than twice as many flights took off and landed every day than at present.

As the Eurocontrol data show, the individual market segments are affected to varying degrees. For cargo flights, there is even an increase of 16 percent compared to the values from 2019. There is only a slight minus of 6 percent compared to 2019 for flights with business jets. Charter flights were also less affected. Currently, the number of flights here is 37 percent below the level of the same period in 2019. Scheduled airlines are and were most affected by the crisis.

For the classic network airlines, the minus is currently still 61 percent. For low-cost carriers, there were 80 percent fewer flights until recently, but in the meantime Ryanair and Co. have caught up. The minus of the low-cost sector compared to 2019 is currently 67 percent. Ryanair alone has increased its flight offer in the past two weeks by 642 daily flights, mainly in Spain and Italy – that’s an increase of 174 percent. With now again more than 1,000 daily flights, the Irish are number one in Europe’s skies.

Rising booking figures also at AUA
Austrian Airlines (AUA) also reported rising booking figures this week. Since mid-May, bookings for the summer have quadrupled on some routes.