UK: Airlines’ Brexit concern eases as pound drop pushes UK visits

More than two months after the UK’s vote to exit the EU sent airlines running for cover, carriers such as British Airways, Emirates and EasyJet have concluded the fallout on traffic will be manageable. While last-minute summer bookings plunged and fares extended their drop in the immediate aftermath of the June 23 referendum, corporate travel demand is expected to come back and Britain is in a position to woo even more visitors than before because of the weak pound, executives said at an industry conference in London. "Brexit is just one of many things that happened in the global economy,” said Tim Clark, president of Dubai-based Emirates. “We have more important things to worry about than that.” Carriers in Europe were already struggling before the vote with weak economic growth and the effects of terrorist attacks in cities including Paris, Brussels and Istanbul that have discouraged leisure and business travel. EasyJet, the region’s second-biggest discount airline, offered its first-ever summer fare promotions this year, while larger low-fare rival Ryanair and Lufthansa either cut 2016 profit forecasts or said targets were at risk. “There was definitely a short-term trading effect” on sales immediately after the Brexit vote, but “from a longer-term point of view, nothing has changed,” EasyJet CEO Carolyn McCall said. “It was a seismic political decision for this country to take, and no one can underestimate that,” the CEO said. “But actually everything we’re doing today is the same.”<br/>