ROME, May 19 (Xinhua) -- Europe's major airlines are preparing for a post-pandemic period that analysts say will look much different from the landscape before the pandemic hit.
The airline sector was among those hit hardest by health restrictions sparked by the pandemic. According to the European Organization for the Safety of Air Navigation, best known as Eurocontrol, the sector saw collective revenue decline by a staggering 88 percent at the start of the pandemic. It recovered slightly since then but as of this month, it is still 65 percent below its levels in January 2020, the last full month before the impacts of the pandemic began to be felt in Europe.
Such a sharp decline has sent ripples across the European airline sector, and the impacts won't end any time soon. Eurocontrol's most recent models chart three potential scenarios for the sector's recovery based on how fast and effective Europe's vaccine rollout proves to be, and the best-case situation shows flights surpassing 2019 levels only in 2024.
"Once the recovery starts, it'll favor domestic flights and other shorter routes over longer ones, and low-cost airlines over full-service options," Giovanni Dragoni, an Italy-based airline sector analyst, told Xinhua. "People are eager for things to return to the way they were before the pandemic, but a lot will depend on convincing people it is safe to travel again."
According to Ravindra Bhagwanani, managing director of Global Flight, an airline consultancy, the speed of the recovery will also depend on the category of traveler in question -- leisure traveler or someone on the road regularly for work -- and the speed at which restrictions tied to travel can return to normal.
"For a leisure traveler, the tight health restrictions won't make a big difference since they travel infrequently," Bhagwanani said in an interview with Xinhua. "When they're ready to travel, they will travel."
"Historically, business travelers have made up a minority of passengers but a majority of miles flown, and they have been the most reliable type of traveler for airlines," Bhagwanani said. "If tight restrictions stay in place, travel won't be appealing to them. They'll stay at home."
It is thought that the restrictions also make it more difficult for full-service airlines to differentiate themselves from their low-cost rivals.
"Under the current circumstances the full-service airlines are forced to cut back on the services they offer," Bhagwanani said. "They end up offering a level of service similar to the discount airlines but at a higher price."
Many full-service airlines -- Europe's largest are Germany's Lufthansa Group, British Airways, Air France-KLM, Turkish Airlines, and Russia's Aeroflot, according to sector monitoring firm SkyCop -- have benefitted from state aid during the pandemic, and it is unclear how they will fare when the aid stops.
Some discount carriers -- the largest European airlines in this category, according to SkyCop, are Ryanair, EasyJet, and Wizz Air -- have also received state aid during the pandemic, though with low-cost structures they are seen as more fit to survive.
That imbalance is on display in Italy, where the national carrier Alitalia was struggling even before the current crisis. The airline has survived only under state control, and efforts to find a suitor have so far failed. Earlier this month, Hungary-based discount rival Wizz Air announced 32 new flight routes from Rome starting this year, a move Bhagwanani said aimed at filling the void left by a struggling Alitalia. Enditem
