DALASA – Airlines and tourist destinations are expecting a huge amount of effort this summer as travel restrictions are eased and pandemic fatigue outweighs the constant fear of getting Covid-19 during the trip.
Many weather forecasters believe that the number of travelers will reach or even exceed the pre-pandemic level. However, airlines have thousands of employees less than in 2019, and this has sometimes led to widespread cancellations.
People who book only summer trips suffer a sticker shock.
According to travel data company Huber, domestic airfare in the summer exceeds an average of $ 400 round trip, which is 24% higher than this time before the pandemic in 2019 and 45% higher than last year.
“The time to buy cheap summer flights was probably three or four months ago,” says Scott Key, who runs Scott’s Cheap Flights website.
Internationally, prices have also increased compared to 2019, but only by 10%. According to Huber, prices to Europe are about 5% cheaper than before the pandemic – $ 868 for the average round trip. Keyes said Europe was the best travel offer.
Steve Nelson of Manfield, Texas, stood in line this week at a security checkpoint at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport and was ready to take a flight to Nice, France, to attend a Formula 1 race in Monaco.
“I decided it was time to work on my cup list,” Nelson said. “So far I have not thought of Monaco.”
Although travel regulations have been relaxed in many countries, restrictions remain that increase inconvenience. Namely, the United States still needs a negative COVID-19 test within one day of traveling to the country.
“It simply came to our notice then. We panicked looking for a place to test, ”said Johnny Dave, a software engineer from Bath, England, who attended a conference in Dallas. National requirements. you have to worry about getting infected with the virus. ”
According to Adobe Analytics, online spending on flights to the US fell in April after a hot March, but is still 23% higher than in spring 2019, mainly due to higher fares.
Airlines blame jet fuel for the highest prices, which almost doubled compared to 2019. However, it is more. The number of flights has not returned to pre-pandemic levels, despite the high demand for travel.
“We have more travelers who want to book fewer seats, and airlines will have higher costs for each seat this summer,” says Heilie Berg, an economist at Huber.
When travelers reach their destination, they will be greeted by hotel prices that are about a third higher than last year. Hotels are also filling up faster. Hotel companies attribute the higher prices to rising delivery costs, as well as to workers in a tight labor market.
Rental cars were hard to find and expensive last summer, but it seems to have dropped as rental companies rebuild their fleets. According to Huber, the average price across the country is currently around $ 70 a day.
Prices and vehicle availability will vary greatly, said Jonathan Weinberg, founder of the car rental shopping site AutoSlash. It won’t be as bad as last summer, but vehicle prices in Hawaii, Alaska, and nearby destinations like national parks will still be “well above average, if you can even find one.”
Even if you drive your own car, it will still be very expensive. The national average for regular gasoline on Thursday was $ 4.60 a gallon, more than $ 6 in California. These prices make some people consider staying at home.
“You’re not really used to $ 6 gas,” said San Diego Juliet Ripley, paying $ 46.38 to put in a 7.1-gallon Honda Civic. And a single mother of two has no summer vacation plans other than an occasional trip to a nearby beach.
However, for those who want to travel, the question is whether airlines, airports, hotels and other travel companies can handle it.
On average, more than 2.1 million people a day board the US, which is about 90% of the 2019 level, and that number is set to rise to hundreds of thousands a day by July.
The U.S. Transportation Safety Administration has hired nearly 1,000 checkpoint staff who can move from one airport to another depending on where they are most needed.
“We are as ready as we can be,” says David Pekoskis, president of the TSA.
Airlines that paid their employees to quit smoking when travel collapsed in 2020 are now trying to hire enough pilots, stewards and other staff. At the beginning of 2022, the four largest US airlines – America, Delta, United and Southwest – had a total of almost 36,000 employees, which was almost 10% less than before the pandemic, despite the large recruitment that began last year.
There is a particular shortage of pilots on smaller regional airlines, which operate almost half of all US flights with names such as American Eagle, Delta Connection and United Express.
Airlines are reducing summer flight schedules so as not to overload their staff and cancel flights at the last minute. This week, Delta reduced about 100 flights a day or 2% from the July schedule and an average of more than 150 flights a day or 3% in August. Southwest Alaska and JetBlue have already reduced summer cruises.
Repeal cases are not limited to the United States. In the UK, EasyJet and British Airways canceled a number of flights this spring due to staff shortages.
Air traffic in Europe is expected to recover to pre-pandemic levels this summer, although the number of visitors outside the region is likely to fall by 30% compared to 2019, according to a new report from the European Travel Commission. The group does not expect international travel to return to normal by 2025.
Russia’s war in Ukraine does not appear to hurt reservations in most of Europe, according to travel experts, but it will reduce the number of Russian and Ukrainian travelers to Cyprus, Montenegro, Latvia, Finland, Estonia and Lithuania. said the committee. Russian tourists tend to be more consumers, so their absence will harm the tourism economy of these destinations.
Also largely missing: Chinese tourists, the world’s largest travel consumers, who are still largely constrained by their government’s ‘zero COVID’ strategy. Some European destinations have reported that the number of Chinese tourists has fallen by more than 90% since 2019.
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