As governments in countries worldwide have started to facilitate their entry rules and lift a large number of restrictions imposed due to the Coronavirus, the air passenger traffic has started to ameliorate.
According to Cirium’s CEO Jeremy Bowen, business travel is expected to accelerate this year, SchegenVisaInfo.com reports.
Bowen pointed to the data provided by the Global Business Travel Association (GBTA), which showed that the business travel spending marked a 21 per cent increase during last year, while according to him, it will continue to increase, as reported by Business Travel Europe.
In addition, GBTA also predicted annual business travel spending would exceed pre-pandemic levels by the end of 2024.
Bowen revealed a return to pre-pandemic figures regarding the domestic passenger traffic worldwide in 2022, with international traffic set to hit a total of 66 per cent of the figures recorded before the spread of the Coronavirus.
“There was little international traffic until mid-2021, when intra-European travel demand opened, facilitated by the EU Digital Covid-19 Certificate. Since then, there has been a steady improvement, as well as in international demand to and from North America,” Bowen highlighted.
Still, September international passenger numbers were significantly below compared to pre-pandemic levels, or 62 per cent down.
The CEO of Cirium believes that entry requirements will continue to be lifted in countries worldwide, as states achieve vaccination rates of 70 per cent or more for the total population.
“International traffic is made up of many distinct regional flows, but we expect a significant increase in long-haul travel in the second half of 2022 and predict that by the end of 2022, international passenger traffic will be down around 25 to 30 per cent compared to 2019,” Bowen pointed out.
Last month, the data provided by Eurocontrol revealed that the air traffic in Europe marked a significant increase. The same source showed that European network traffic revealed that from January 9 until February 8, the air traffic was continuously increasing.
Eurocontrol’s data showed that Europe registered a total of 16,435 flights per day only on February 8, which indicated that the number of flights during the same day reached 67.5 per cent of the levels recorded during the same period in 2019.
Besides the Coronavirus situation, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has also profoundly affected the air travel process.
Due to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, authorities in EU countries, as well as Canada, Norway, Albania, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom, have banned airlines from Russia from their airspace, while Russia’s government has also taken reciprocity measures.
The situation in Ukraine has highly affected a large number of airlines, including airBaltic, Austrian Airlines, British Airways Lufthansa, Ryanair, Scandinavian Airlines, Swiss International Airlines, and Wizz Air.
