Pessimists have prevailed in forecasts about when flights will be fully resumed. Everything has been moved again on the time scale and new terms have been named: now the Airports Council International (ACI) of Europe predicts that the complete restoration of passenger air transport to the EU is expected no earlier than 2025.
“Passenger traffic next year will be down 9% compared to 2019, and full recovery is delayed. by 2025 instead of 2024,” experts said, commenting on the previous forecast. In addition, the general director of ACI Europe, Olivier Jankovets, stated that despite the increase in passenger traffic, which has “sharply recovered” since the spring of last year, airlines will not receive about 220 million passengers, including tourists, in 2023. “Passenger transport has been very resilient in the face of increasing geopolitical and economic obstacles. However, we now expect passenger traffic to resume no earlier than 2025. The European airports will finally return to the state they were in before the pandemic hit,” he said.
The main reason for revising the forecast to the pessimistic side is “geopolitical tensions”, which will continue to hurt the markets. Also, inflation and other macroeconomic indicators will continue to “pressure” the cost of air tickets in a direction unfavorable for tourists. And although the situation will be tried to be compensated by part of the airlines forced to become “super-budget” carriers, as well as the stability of the demand for rest, the pessimists “win”.
However, the tourism market, as always, is a matter for optimists — even Mr. Yankovets separately emphasized that some needs, especially those that depend on tourism, will already next year exceed the passenger flow registered in the pre-pandemic period. But the rest will suffer.