(4 minutes read)
· Global airlines association – the International Air Transport Association (IATA) – sees threats in the wake of the fresh variant of the coronavirus, Omicron.
· They have expressed worry over fresh impositions of travel bans and flight restrictions
· Across the world, governments are taking steps to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 Omicron variant.
· The IATA said the emerging disruption would affect the slow recovery, leading to added losses to the cash crunched airlines.
Global airlines association – the International Air Transport Association (IATA) – sees threats in the wake of the fresh variant of the coronavirus, Omicron. They have expressed worry over fresh impositions of travel bans and flight restrictions. Across the world, governments are taking steps to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 Omicron variant.
The IATA said the emerging disruption would affect the slow recovery, leading to added losses to the cash crunched airlines. The imposition of travel bans by governments, against the advice of the World Health Organisation (WHO) now threatening to take the pendulum back, after the airlines registered a marginal improvement in their performances. The virus seems to have surfaced in 24 countries since South Africa reported the first case. The number of countries closing the borders to flights is increasing and is presently pegged at 30 or so. Southern Africa has now become a region banned from visit by most of the countries, severely affecting the region’s revenue inflows, particularly from the tourism and hospitality sector.
IATA has an affiliation of 290 global airlines. It is estimated that total demand for air travel in October 2021 (measured in revenue passenger kilometers or RPKs) was down 49.4 per cent compared to October 2019. This had shown improvement over the 53.3 per cent fall recorded in September 2021, as compared to two years earlier.
International passenger demand in October was 65.5 per cent below October 2019, compared to a 69.0 per cent decline for September as against the 2019 period. All regions have shown improvement in performance in the recent months.
African airlines’ traffic has fallen 60.2 per cent in October as compared to two years’ ago, while Traffic in September was down 62.1 per cent over the corresponding 2019 period. Further, October capacity was down 49.0 per cent and load factor declined 15.2 percentage points to 54.1 per cent.
