With multiple news reports of flight cancellations, as airports suffering from staff shortages struggle to cope with surging demand, ForwardKeys has taken a closer look at air traffic disruption by analysing recent trends in intra-European flight bookings for travel in July and August and changes in seat capacity.
It shows that a fall in consumer confidence, which began in the last week of May, has rapidly worsened, as last-minute bookings in the week running up to 10th July were down by 44%, compared with 2019 levels. Bookings from Amsterdam were down by 59% and from London by 41%.
The recent level of disruption to traveller’s schedules is well illustrated by a jump in the ratio of partial cancellations modifications to total bookings. From 30th May to 10th July, it has almost tripled from 13% before the pandemic in 2019 to 36% this summer. The collapse in last-minute bookings and the increase in cancellation modifications are making a significant dent in the travel industry’s outlook for the summer. As of 30th May, total intra-European flight bookings for July and August were 17% behind 2019 levels.
However, on 11th July, seven weeks later, they were 22% behind, slowing down 5% percentage points. The relative slowdown has been far worse for Amsterdam and London. At the end of May, July-August bookings from Amsterdam were 9% behind 2019 levels and from London were 9% ahead. They have since fallen back to 22% and 2% behind, respectively, which equates to a 13 percentage-point slowdown in bookings from Amsterdam and an 11 percentage-point slowdown from London.
The destination suffering the greatest relative setback in its summer outlook as a result of the slowdown in last-minute bookings from Amsterdam is London, where bookings have slowed from 3% ahead of 2019 levels in the fourth week of May to 18% behind on 11th July, which represents a drop of 21 percentage points. The same metric percentage point drop is followed by Lisbon, 18%, Barcelona, 15% Madrid, 14% and Rome, 9%.
Taking the same approach with London, the most affected destinations are Istanbul, where bookings have fallen by 32% Palma Mallorca and Nice, 12% and Lisbon and Athens, 7%. The 5% percentage-point slowdown in intra-European bookings from the last week of May to 11th July is mirrored by a similar reduction in airline seat capacity over the same period.ForwardKeys reveals that scheduled intra-European seat capacity has seen a reduction of 5 across the continent, with Amsterdam and London experiencing the largest reductions, at 11% and 8% respectively. Olivier Ponti, VP Insights, ForwardKeys, said One can think positively and negatively about this summer.
On the upside, it is encouraging to see a strong resurgence in demand following the pandemic, with summer bookings in May surging ahead of 2019 levels. That was excellent news for the travel, tourism, and hospitality industries, which badly need the business.
Written by: Matthew Thomas
