Covid-19 continues to impact the global air travel industry, the latest data from Skytra, the Airbus subsidiary, shows a rising average ticket prices across all major regions. Notably there is a dramatic increase of 34% in ticket prices for flights between APAC-EU, while prices for flights between APAC- NA have also surpassed previous years.
These price rises are likely driven by several factors. The major reductions in capacity around the world, the fact that the majority of travel is for the moment essential or repatriation flights as well as in certain cases a shortening of average trip length (shorter flights have higher prices per km). However we are seeing an increase in bookings in many markets particularly for Q4 2020. We will take a closer look at this next week.
Commenting Mark Howarth, CEO, Skytra said: “We are entering a new phase in Covid-19’s impact on the global air travel industry. Bookings are beginning to pick up again as passengers start to undertake essential travel. We are observing a new pricing equilibrium driven by an adjustment in flight capacity and demand reviving from extraordinarily low levels. It is an evolving picture and affects prices in each market in a different way. Whilst we remain in a very early stage of recovery, it is reassuring to see a continued rise in demand.”
In the sixth week of Skytra’s COVID-19 coverage report we share our COVID-19 related metrics complemented by the Skytra Price Indices, which measure the average price of air travel per kilometer in the different markets around the world.
This week we take a closer look at the forward bookings for North America by comparing bookings this week versus four weeks prior. We also share interesting data insights on pricing using Skytra’s $/RPK metric indices.
Our COVID-19 metrics used below are as follows:
- Customer and airline sentiment for the upcoming months, so each week we can see how much travel is being booked for the rest of 2020.
- Value of tickets issued over the past week compared to the same week in 2019 and how this has evolved over the past three months as COVID-19 spread in different regions of the world
