Airline bookings weaken as IATA warns recovery ‘some way away’

Forward airline bookings have weakened going into Q1 2021, as IATA warns that the situation is likely to get worse before it gets better. The organisation’s chief economist Brian Pearce notes that while the industry saw “some modest improvement in bookings in the weeks following the vaccine announcement news” in Q4 2020, that trend was reversed towards the end of December and into the first few days of 2021. “We’ve actually seen quite a sharp drop-off in bookings, which means that the immediate outlook looks pretty challenging,” he explains, citing the impact of spiking virus cases and the imposition of further travel restrictions by governments around the world. Today, bookings for Q1 2021 are down 75%, 82% and 81% year-on-year respectively for January, February and March. At the same point of Q4 2020 – which Pearce notes was “already weak” – IATA figures show forward bookings were down 71%, 81% and 80% year-on-year respectively for October, November and December.<br/>