Post-Covid will change tourism. Already now thousands of airplanes are stranded and governments are pushing millions to keep their national fleet. Current crisis may change:
Updating aircraft technology: Smaller long-range aircraft, such as 787s and A321LR, offer flying thinner, intercontinental city pairs nonstop. They will bring retirement of very large wide-body crafts designed for hub operations, such as A380s and 747s. Point2Point airlines make up most of users of the new aircraft: 65% of the active ordered A321LRs are P2P.
Customer: Nowadays most customers prefer nonstop flights. Airlines recognize this and have charged a price premium for nonstop flights. Customers usually find cheaper connecting routes for intercontinental travel. This premium has increased, as pricing optimization has better segmented non-stop, business travellers. The pandemic may have upset this trend; airlines will rethink pricing to fill nonstop flights, maybe reducing the nonstop premium and undercutting demand for connecting flights on the same route.
“Faro could become a small hub from No. Europe to Africa and Northern So.America!”
Environmental: Passengers on a connecting flight generally fly more km than they would on a nonstop option. Average distance flown by connecting pax on flights from Europe, is 16% longer than that of nonstop flights on the same routes. Longer distances mean more fuel, which means greater CO²emissions. Flygskam(flight shaming) and environmental issues were concerns for both airlines and passengers before Covid, and will continue. Some countries have added environmentally friendly terms to their postcrisis aid packages, which may encourage efforts to comply with emissions goals.
Hub congestion: Before the crisis, the Int’l Air Transport Association expected that 4 of the world’s largest 100 airports would have sufficient capacity to meet demand by 2028. These concerns are less relevant in the aftermath of the Covid crisis because of the sharp fall in air traffic.
Stress in connections: Connection times have been tight, inducing much stress at the hub airports. Slight delays can make tight connections detract customer experience.
This way, Faro could become a quick and easy small hub from Northern Europe to Africa and Northern SouthAmerica.
