Demand for the Abu-Dhabi based carrier is gradually picking up as the imminent rollout of vaccine passes increases travellers’ confidence, but full recovery is not expected before 2024, said Etihad Airways executives.
Travel from countries such as Pakistan and Bangladesh has already picked up for Etihad Airways and is expected to grow when coronavirus related travel restrictions ease further, said Martin Drew, senior vice president, sales and cargo, Etihad Airways.
“I think business travel is going to take some time to return but certainly from a leisure standpoint, there is a huge amount of pent-up demand,” said Drew.
Quoting a report from International Air Transport Association (IATA), Drew said: “There’s been a significant increase in household savings as a result of countries going into lockdown, and of course the first thing that people are going to do when restrictions ease is travel.”
Drew was speaking at a media round table organised by Etihad Airways on Sunday.
Dubai saw a strong tourism rebound once restrictions were eased, because of the pent-up demand, said Drew, adding that the UK market to the emirate quadrupled at the end of 2020, and around 50,000 Israelis visited during Hanukah in December.
While demand is expected to be strong by the second half of the year, and speaking from the perspective of Etihad Airways, Drew does not expect fully recovery before 2024.
“We are already starting to further round out our passenger network with the resumption of services into the Seychelles, Moscow, and Casablanca at the end of this month and we will be launching Tel Aviv on the on April 6,” said Drew.
Martin Drew, senior vice president, sales and cargo, Etihad Airways.
“There’s definitely some positives and as we continue to see the vaccine program sort of being rolled out and restrictions eased, and considering that there is a lot of pent-up demand, we will see a strong rebound,” he continued.
Vaccine passes will go a long way in facilitating travel as they increase consumer confidence, said Chris Youlten, executive director operations strategy at Etihad Airways.
Etihad Airways has been exploring vaccine passes since June last year and is expecting to roll out trials for the IATA vaccine pass on its North America route in April.
“We’ve been waiting to ensure that the IATA travel pass that we trial is, in fact as efficient for the guests as it is for the airline,” said Youlten.
“It is a very difficult app to put together accurately, primarily because at the back end, any travel pass is going to have to be able to collect the medical records of passengers and that is a very complex world to get into,” he continued.
“From the airlines point of view, the need and the necessity is for us not to have to be the filter at the airport to determine whether or not someone is meeting the regulations of each individual country,” said Youlten.
Chris Youlten, executive director operations strategy at Etihad Airways.
It’s similar to visa processes in which passengers come to the airport with the visa process complete and it is not up to the airline to interrogate passengers and the system is in place that validates travellers’ entry based on their visa.
“The intention [of vaccine passes] is to make travel easy but it will not be the reason why travel opens up,” said Youlten.
“It will facilitate travel, once governments decide on what regulations are put in place to cross their borders in either direction, so it’s just one part of a very complex puzzle. The reopening that we hope will come in the next few quarters,” he continued.
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