Travelers are waiting till last minute to book flights

Airline customers are waiting longer to purchase tickets, making it harder for carriers in Europe to gauge near-term demand in light of new travel barriers. Rapid rule changes have led passengers to spend more time assessing whether a trip will be allowed, Wizz Air Holdings Plc President Robert Carey said Wednesday. The trend, which took hold earlier in the Covid-19 pandemic, has been heightened by the emergence of the omicron variant over the past week, according to Carey and EasyJet CEO Johan Lundgren. “Customers are booking closer and closer in,” Carey said Wednesday. “Every week it feels like it gets one day closer to departure.” EasyJet and others said they’re seeing a softening of demand through year-end, throwing a steady travel recovery before omicron into question. U.K. searches for international flights dropped by more than a quarter last weekend after Covid testing requirements were toughened, according to travel site Kayak. “The latest round of government restrictions across the world have been uncoordinated and inconsistent, and that’s made Christmas travel more complicated for both airlines and passengers,” said former British Airways CEO Alex Cruz. While carriers “can quickly adapt to knee-jerk reactions, it is still a blow to the recovery which was just getting underway.”<br/>