Vaccinated travelers from 33 countries would be authorized by the White House to return to the United States after 18 months of border closures.
Airlines are preparing to receive Monday vaccinated travelers from 33 countries, Authorized to return to the United States after 18 months of border closures.
Air France, British Airways y United Airlines, Among other companies, they depend to a great extent on the trans-Pacific and transatlantic routes, for this reason they added flights, chose larger planes and secured enough personnel.
The ad of the White House on the lifting of restrictions was expected for months by separated families, business travelers or simple tourists, Because of the virus, Washington drastically limited the arrival of passengers from those countries, including the Schengen area, Great Britain, China, India and Brazil.
Ticket purchases immediately exploded. British Airways saw flight bookings grow by 900% and stays in some US cities for the days leading up to Christmas, compared to the week preceding the White House announcement.
At American Airlines, bookings jumped 66% to Great Britain after the announcement, 40% to Europe and 74% to Brazil.
The flights on November 8, the reopening date, were taken over, as Evelyne and Jean-Michel Desobeau found.
Eager to see their daughter and son-in-law in New York, they booked tickets for November 2 since rumors of the reopening spread, using their miles.
But when they wanted to change them for the 8, the number of miles needed had tripled. And finally they will arrive on the 9th for a more reasonable rate.
More flights and seats
Companies filled long-flying planes with empty seats, progressively adding new places.
The company Air France recently went from three to five daily flights between Paris and New York, its most frequented line. On the route to Houston, it will replace the Airbus 330s with Boeing 777s, with more seats.
Air France plans to return between now and March 2022 at 90% of its pre-pandemic capacity in the United States, compared to 65% in October.
After an expected and probably moderate bump in January-February, companies expect a rise in spring and especially in summer, traditionally the best season.
At United, the flight schedule to tourist destinations in Latin America has already returned to 2019 levels, but its international programming remains at 63%.
The American firm is committed to transatlantic flights: five new destinations will reopen in spring (Jordan, Portugal, Norway, Spain); will add flights to London, Berlin, Dublin, Milan, Munich and Rome; and it will reopen routes interrupted during the pandemic, including Frankfurt, Nice and Zurich.
But while they are being opened for some, the borders will in fact be closed for many Latin Americans with less access to the vaccine in their countries and who until now traveled as tourists to the United States to get immunized.
As well as for those who have received vaccines that have not been approved by the FDA drug agency or the World Health Organization (WHO). Being unable to enter the United States for the time being those immunized with the Russian Sputnik V and the Chinese CanSino, which were applied in many Latin American countries, including Argentina and Mexico.
Uncertainty for personnel
Air traffic is also reactivated in the trans-Pacific, but more slowly.
Singapore Airlines, which took advantage of the opening of a corridor for vaccinated passengers between Singapore and North America in October, plans to return to 77% of its precovid flights between the two zones in December, with the reopening of routes between Seattle and Vancouver.
For Burkett Huey, Air Transport Specialist at Morningstar, airlines have enough planes to handle the flow of travelers: “Some large carriers were removed from the fleets in 2020, but nothing that completely alters the landscape.”
The uncertainty concerns the staff, he assures. In the United States, where companies instituted extensive voluntary retirement plans at the beginning of the pandemic, American and Southwest recently had to cancel thousands of flights for lack of workers.
The question concerns above all the return of business travelers, favorites of companies.
On transatlantic flights, Until now, companies favored some key routes with large carriers, to include comfortable seats for business travelers, and they completed the routes with internal flights in the United States and Europe.
But with fewer business travelers, they could offer more direct routes to tourists, using new, smaller but long-distance planes like the A321neo. (I)
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