UK: Airlines take fresh hit as travel bans spread

Airlines cancelled scores of flights on Monday as a growing list of countries banned travel from the UK, compounding the crisis facing the aviation industry following a year of unprecedented disruption. Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Hong Kong and India are among the countries to have blocked people arriving from the UK in an effort to control the spread of a new more infectious variant of coronavirus. Shares in major airlines were among the worst hit during a stock market sell-off across Europe, with easyJet and IAG leading the declines with losses of nearly 10% each. Lower-cost carriers less exposed to the UK market and continental airlines suffered less steep falls, with Ryanair and Air France-KLM each down about 5%. The UK government on Saturday placed London and south-east England under strict lockdown, banning all non-essential travel, and warned that a new mutation of Covid-19 was up to 70% more transmissible, prompting countries to respond with travel bans. Flights were cancelled at airports across the UK, from Edinburgh to Birmingham as the travel restrictions took hold. There were more than 900 daily flights between the UK and EU countries last week, and data from air navigation safety body Eurocontrol showed air traffic was nudging higher prior to the travel bans which began to take hold on Sunday. “We’ll see a significant impact on the network as a result of the new variant in the UK, Eurocontrol’s director-general Eamon Brennan said. Aviation analysts said the rise in festive bookings would have offered a cash lifeline following the recent collapse in revenue.<br/>