Major airlines are rushing to add a new transatlantic service now that tourism-dependent countries like Croatia, Greece, Iceland and Italy have started allowing visitors from the United States and other countries for the first time in a year.
Delta Air Lines began serving Reykjavik, Iceland, from Boston on May 20. It then restarted non-stop to the Icelandic capital from Minneapolis a week later. Service from New York City began May 1. United Airlines’ first service to Dubrovnik begins July 1 from its hub in Newark, New Jersey. The airline plans to add July-October flights to Athens from Washington-Dulles next month in addition to its service from Newark which began earlier this month.
Carriers are also stepping up their schedules to Spain, Portugal and Italy as those countries open up as well. American Airlines, for example, has extended service from Philadelphia to Athens through the second half of August, and to Rome from Philadelphia and Chicago in September – routes set to resume next summer.
The European Union this week recommended adding the United States to a list of safe countries of origin, which could make it easier for American visitors to enter the 27-country bloc this summer. The EU has banned them since the start of the pandemic and the change is fueling airline efforts to avoid another lost European summer.
Rapid flight launches show airlines are scrambling to increase revenues and stem pandemic losses that total more than $ 32 billion for Delta, United and American combined.
Airlines generally like to unveil new international destinations with great fanfare several months and sometimes almost a year in advance. The long lead time gives airline marketing departments time to engage customers with campaigns featuring images of sun-kissed cobblestone streets or panoramic views of the Adriatic Sea. It also gives government affairs and airport crews time to secure the permits and subcontractors to handle everything from check-in to wheelchair service to fuel on the ground long before the first flights take off.
It’s out the window in the age of the pandemic. Instead, airlines were waiting for the green light from governments to lift travel restrictions and help rebuild international networks. Travelers have also waited longer to book due to the uncertainty caused by the pandemic.
American would normally take about a year to launch a new international route like its new Miami to Tel Aviv route, said Brian Znotins, vice president of network planning and schedules for American Airlines. Planning new routes involves hundreds of employees, he said.
“These deadlines have all been compressed. People weren’t booking eight and 12 months in advance. They booked two to three months in advance, ”Znotins said. His team “travels at the speed of light”.
Patrick Quayle, vice president of United’s international network and alliances, said demand for Dubrovnik Croatia, a new market for United, was so high after the airline’s announcement, that he called the vice- Carrier’s President of Global Airport Operations, David Kinzelman, with a request: “I would like to start it a week earlier.” Can you do it ? “
“We’re loading it relatively late and releasing it in the hopes that people will book,” Quayle said. He said demand for Croatia, Greece and Iceland had “eclipsed” demand from the UK, which is typically its largest transatlantic destination, “because those three countries were the first to walk out the door. “.
Domestic leisure bookings this summer are near 2019 levels – with matching fares – but generally lucrative international travel continues to lag as many travel restrictions remain in place. This forced US carriers to focus more on US destinations, where in some cases they deployed their larger jets that would normally fly over the oceans.
United said its international capacity in July was 36% of its total, up from 45% in 2019. And its domestic flights are only a quarter lower than two years ago, while international capacity is twice as low.
But demand is increasing for travel to Europe. The Hopper fare tracker app said on Friday that searches for flights in Europe had nearly doubled from the same period last month. Travel site Kayak said searches for trips to Europe were down 11% from 2019, and July airfares between the United States and Europe averaged $ 929, or about 6% less than two years ago.
Even as airlines add more services to Europe, demand and service are still below 2019 levels as the United States still prohibits most non-citizens who have been in the European Union or in the UK for the past two weeks, despite calls from the airline and travel. industry to governments on both sides of the Atlantic. US citizens can visit the UK but must still be quarantined.
But airlines are looking for all the flights they can launch, and their starting point is very low.
Passenger volumes between the United States and the top 25 destination countries in May fell by more than 90% compared to 2019, with figures between the United States and Italy, the United Kingdom and the Spain down 95% or more, according to Airlines for America, a trade industry group that represents most of the major US carriers.
Covid travel restrictions have also posed challenges for airlines as they rolled out new flights with the remote organization of facilities and ground staff.
Kinzelman, United’s vice president of global airports, said this was the case ahead of the airline’s launch of Dulles flights to Accra, Ghana this year.
“We couldn’t bring people who would normally travel in advance to do a site audit and a tour of the station,” he said. “In a lot of cases it’s videos like this where we would say, grab your camera and let’s walk through space. What will a customer experience look like? And it was super useful. “
Kinzelman added that the airline wouldn’t want to do this indefinitely, but said “necessity is the mother of invention.”
–
