ROUTE DEVELOPMENT
Restoring air connectivity We report on some of the route development challenges facing Europe’s airports as the industry continues to struggle from the impact of the global pandemic.
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ust when you began to think that things were getting better, rising infection levels across Europe in November led a number of countries to impose new COVID restrictions and, in some cases, full and partial lockdowns. At the time of writing, the impact of these measures on international travel for the fully vaccinated was unknown, but they provided another reminder of just how difficult it is going to be for airports to rebuild their international route networks over the next year to 18 months. It is generally accepted that domestic and short-haul travel will recover more quickly than long-haul international routes, but what timescale are we realistically looking at before the airlines really begin to ramp up their services again? What incentives can airports offer the airlines to encourage them to resume services, increase existing frequencies and launch new routes? And has COVID changed our travel habits forever, particularly for business travel, where many companies appear to have pulled the plug on overseas trips for now due to economic difficulties and the hassle and uncertainty of planning often expensive business trips abroad? The hugely challenging situation facing Europe’s airports when it comes to their route networks was touched upon in the ‘Restoring air connectivity and reimagining route and network development’ session at ACI Europe’s recent Annual Congress & General Assembly in Geneva. Moderator, KPI Aviation and Marketing Solutions’ managing director, George Karamanos, opened the session by suggesting that airports might have to completely change their airline marketing strategies to adapt to today’s more challenging environment.
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“People are deciding where to travel based on COVID. In fact, the main driver of travel at this point is anything that relates to COVID, so a new approach is necessary,” said Karamanos. Indeed, he believes that COVID has changed the attitudes and behaviour of travellers to such an extent that it is time to re-prioritise the needs and desires of passengers in what he called “the new travel normal”. Aviation, he argues, now has to appeal to a new set of passenger personas, the bulk of which will need some convincing to travel again, as KPI research indicates that the ‘Optimistic Traveller’, the kind of passenger the industry wants, only account for around 18% of the total. In fact the new market, he argues, is now dominated by ‘The Common-Sense Traveller’ (35%) and ‘The Cautious Traveller’ (29%), with ‘The Non-Traveller’ (6%); and ‘The Risk Averse Traveller’ (12%) accounting for the rest. Going into more specifics about the new passenger personas identified by new KPI research, Karamanos said a statement that best summed up The Common Sense Traveller, would be: “I have returned to air travel but will take necessary precautions during my journey. The number of COVID cases and restrictions at my destination will impact my flight choice.” For The Cautious Traveller, he said the comment would be: “I will only take a flight, if it is absolutely necessary, taking all precautions required. I will await the easing of restrictions and reduction in cases before I fly more regularly.”
