Airlines bullish on recovery

In a webinar yesterday, hosted by CarTrawler, airline chief executives were confident for the robust recovery of air travel, especially business travel, which with international long-haul travel has lagged behind the recovery in domestic air travel.

“By far the biggest and most impactful question being debated is the question about business travel returning,” said United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby. “Put me firmly in the camp it is going to return in full.” Kirby predicts that business executives will travel more when the pandemic ends than before, since Zoom calls cannot replace developing business relationships in person. “There is no substitute for being in person. Zoom, I think is going to replace phone calls, but it's not going to replace in person needs”

Sean Doyle, CEO of British Airways, agreed noting the value of “face-to-face interactions” for businesses: “You do business with people, not organisations,” he said.

Doyle also noted a resurgence in bookings every time restrictions were lifted and stated that long-haul travel recovered more quickly than expected. “In October and November, premium cabins posted exactly the same rate as non-premium cabins,” he said. “There is a level of pent up demand and keenness to get out and get doing what we used to do… You need to sit next to people. You need to bond, you need to socialise… Human beings are adventurers. We want to explore; it's in our DNA. I don't think a pandemic, even though it's lasted a bit longer than we expected, will suppress that for too long.”

Sophie Dekkers, CCO of easyJet, commented that the airline has experienced strong demand for business travel throughout the pandemic period, when restrictions allows, because “SMEs needed to travel,” noting that business travel wasn’t just about “men in suits”, that manufacturers needed to travel to complete work that cannot be done virtually. “Proportionally, we are still seeing business travel ...[at] similar sort of levels that it was at before.” Dekker notes that it will be interesting to see what happens to commuter traffic post pandemic as people adopt a more hybrid model of working with fewer days in the office and more time working from home. She also notes that lower cost airlines should benefit post-pandemic for more business travel customers that may be working with reduced travel budgets.

Scott Kirby highlighted United’s confidence in the robust recovery of the sector by its large orderbook, which has swelled to more than 500 aircraft having purchases 270 aircraft during the pandemic period. “This came from a view early in the pandemic that travel was ultimately going recover,” he said. “We thought the pandemic was going take a couple of years… but we thought that nothing would change about human nature and that travel would recover in full.”

Kirby noted that the as the world reacted to several waves and additional restrictions that caused competing airlines began to retire aircraft, whereas United “doubled down and turn right when everyone else was turning left”.

He added: “That’s the right call; demand is going to be robust and we're going be able to grow. But if we can do that at the same that everyone else is constrained and unable to grow, it creates a unique opportunity for United Airlines. We are really quite bullish; quite excited about the future and every data point we have points in the direction that ultimately we will put this in the rear view mirror; COVID will become endemic and the world will get back to living and travelling.”

Hosts CarTrawler, the car rental provider, announced findings from a new research report revealing widespread positivity towards travel, a desire for more flexibility and transparency from travel companies, and a willingness to pay for greater green travel options. These insights were revealed in its consumer insight report for 2022, titled The Evolution of Travel: CarTrawler’s Consumer Trends for 2022.

The research, which surveyed 1,000 people in both the US and the UK, reveals that almost three quarters (73%) of respondents expressed positive emotions towards travel as people look to spread their wings again following the pandemic disruption. Excitement (39%), followed by anticipation (29%) and happiness (9%) are the main positive sentiments felt, as people have a rekindled sense of wanderlust, with 51% expecting to do more domestic leisure travel in the next year, while 43% expect to undertake more international leisure travel this year.