Latin America’s airlines stare out along a future of empty runways
During a pandemic that has wreaked havoc with global travel, Enrique Beltranena is something of a rarity: a happy airline boss. Volaris, his Mexican low-cost airline, has added, not cut, routes during the crisis, has a healthy balance sheet and is “cautiously optimistic” in its outlook, he said. But with three major carriers forced into bankruptcy protection and another three halting operations altogether because of the pandemic, Latin America is staring at a difficult future for its industry and the likelihood that travel options will be permanently reduced. The region that remains the centre of the pandemic — with nearly 40 per cent of daily deaths — sucks up money from tourism in a normal year. This year is exceptionally bad and likely to remain so, with travellers seeking to escape the northern hemisphere winter expected to stay away, in part because of restrictions on flights to Europe from all Latin American countries except Uruguay. “What all this process is going to do is delay growth [of the industry] in the region,” said Pablo Ceriani, president and CE of state-owned Aerolíneas Argentinas. Peter Cerda, VP for the Americas at the IATA, believes many regional airlines will come out of the crisis smaller and operating fewer flights. “That will limit opening new destinations,” he said. He expects it will take until 2024 for international flights to recover to pre-pandemic levels and that even domestic routes will take until 2023 to pick up. Within the region, people will start to travel again, especially to visit friends and family, but they are unlikely to journey far. “Long-haul business travel will take longer to recover,” he added. Stephen Trent, director of Americas airline research at Citi, said Mexico, Central America and Colombia remained “within short-haul international flight range from the US” but for the south of the continent, “it’s a different issue . . . maybe now there’ll be sparser choices for example for flights from the US to Buenos Aires”. Story has more.<br/>
https://portal.staralliance.com/cms/news/hot-topics/2020-10-20/general/latin-america2019s-airlines-stare-out-along-a-future-of-empty-runways
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Latin America’s airlines stare out along a future of empty runways
During a pandemic that has wreaked havoc with global travel, Enrique Beltranena is something of a rarity: a happy airline boss. Volaris, his Mexican low-cost airline, has added, not cut, routes during the crisis, has a healthy balance sheet and is “cautiously optimistic” in its outlook, he said. But with three major carriers forced into bankruptcy protection and another three halting operations altogether because of the pandemic, Latin America is staring at a difficult future for its industry and the likelihood that travel options will be permanently reduced. The region that remains the centre of the pandemic — with nearly 40 per cent of daily deaths — sucks up money from tourism in a normal year. This year is exceptionally bad and likely to remain so, with travellers seeking to escape the northern hemisphere winter expected to stay away, in part because of restrictions on flights to Europe from all Latin American countries except Uruguay. “What all this process is going to do is delay growth [of the industry] in the region,” said Pablo Ceriani, president and CE of state-owned Aerolíneas Argentinas. Peter Cerda, VP for the Americas at the IATA, believes many regional airlines will come out of the crisis smaller and operating fewer flights. “That will limit opening new destinations,” he said. He expects it will take until 2024 for international flights to recover to pre-pandemic levels and that even domestic routes will take until 2023 to pick up. Within the region, people will start to travel again, especially to visit friends and family, but they are unlikely to journey far. “Long-haul business travel will take longer to recover,” he added. Stephen Trent, director of Americas airline research at Citi, said Mexico, Central America and Colombia remained “within short-haul international flight range from the US” but for the south of the continent, “it’s a different issue . . . maybe now there’ll be sparser choices for example for flights from the US to Buenos Aires”. Story has more.<br/>
