The virus threatens airlines

The impact of coronavirus for airline companies it will be able to reach up to 113 billion dollars of lower revenue in 2020. The IATA estimates it, the international association of flight lines. “The turning of events following Covid-19 is almost unprecedented“IATA chief Alexandre de Juniac said during a meeting in Singapore.” In just over two months, the outlook for the sector in much of the world has changed. dramatic worse”.

There IATA estimated the loss of revenue of airlines for the transport of passengers between 63 billion dollars – if the spread of the virus is contained – and 113 billion dollars if the coronavirus continues to spread. This estimate does not take into account losses in freight transport. The most critical scenario represents a 19% drop in global air passenger revenues. From a financial point of view, this would be “equivalent” to what the sector has suffered during the last one global financial crisis, notes the organization. On February 20, IATA released a first estimate of $ 29.3 billion in lost revenue in a scenario where theimpact of the epidemic it had been limited to the markets associated with China only. But since then the virus has reached more than 80 countries.

The epidemic dealt a fatal blow to the British airline Flybe, who recently managed to escape bankruptcy several times: today announced the cessation of activities. “All planes are on the ground and operations in the UK have ceased with immediate effect,” Flybe said, urging her customers not to go to the airport because she was unable to find alternative flights.

The Norwegian low-cost airline Norwegian Air Shuttle withdrew its forecasts for the current year due to the impact of the epidemic: after three years of losses it had stated that it hoped to return to profit in 2020.

Yesterday the German airline Lufthansa announced the grounding of 150 of its aircraft due to the drop in air traffic generated by the outbreak of the new coronavirus, while the British Virgin Atlantic announced new flight postponements among other measures to overcome the crisis.

According to a study by the specialized company ForwardkeysAir bookings in Europe from the American, Asian and African continents plummeted 79% in the last week of February due to the coronavirus epidemic. And in the same period in Italy the number of cancellations even exceeded that of new bookings.

The “acceleration” of the spread “of Covid-19 in Italy in the last week of February triggered a wave of cancellations for Italy and a collapse of new reservations for Europe from the Americas, Asia Pacific and the Africa / Middle East, according to reports from the company that analyzes more than 17 million reservations worldwide every day, as well as 7 million searches for flights.‘Italy it is even worse than what we have seen in the past with destabilizing events such as terrorist attacks “, comments Olivier Ponti, vice president of Forwardkeys. For him,” the booking behavior seems disproportionate, with European countries other than Italy hit by substantial decreases “in travel plans.

Between January 25 – the date on which China suspended agreements for travel abroad – and February 22, the reservations airlines to Europe from other continents initially decreased by 23.7%. But in the last week of February “the situation has worsened considerably” and the impact on travel “has not been limited to Italy: the total of new flight bookings for Europe has decreased by 79%”.