Delta casts doubt on NY-London Covid ‘air corridor’

Delta has cast doubt on hopes of opening an air “corridor” on the lucrative route between New York and London, saying it would be easier to relaunch transatlantic flights to “just about any” other European capital. The route has been among the busiest and most profitable for carriers including British Airways and Virgin Atlantic, and is a priority for US airlines working to open up such corridors, which could exempt passengers from quarantining on arrival.  But Ed Bastian, Delta’s CE, said that it would be easier to open such a corridor to almost any other European hub than London.  “I think you will find on the continent several countries that are more open,” he said, pointing to parts of southern Europe that rely more heavily on tourism revenues. As most domestic passengers flying into New York also face a 14-day quarantine “I think New York-London is complicated”, he said.  Testing passengers so governments felt safe to lift quarantine restrictions was critical to reviving demand for international flights, Bastian said, adding that some corridors to Europe would already be open had Covid-19 cases not climbed so steeply in recent months. Bastian cautioned that traffic could remain subdued throughout Christmas and New Year because of recent rises in coronavirus cases. “I’m not sure we’ll see as much of an increase as we were expecting a month ago,” he said. He struck a more optimistic note on business travel, where demand remains depressed and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has predicted that the post-pandemic era will see more than half of business trips “go away”.<br/>