PGberkshire

Change of routes/destinations
Mix of F/J on planes (14 to 8 / No 747 etc)
Less business travel / Zoom/WebEx becoming more accepted
Remote working on the rise
Holidayers being more likely to pay for premium flights

Greg66

This chimes with my thinking. The risk, both in terms of risk to me (as someone who has had the virus and subsequently had the vaccination) and the risk I present to others are things which I am comfortable with. But the hassle factor of forms, tests, potential delays and possible ultra-short notice changes of rules depending on your destination has drained my enthusiasm for testing the waters right now - not just with flying, but even to the point of taking the family in the car to France.

mfhpfl

Never. Once we’re through the CV19 crisis the shift will be towards the climate change crisis & cheap air travel for the masses will not be part of the plan for that. I foresee air travel becoming a expensive luxury reserved for the wealthy. In 30-50 years air travel will be extinct. Just my take

GumshoeW12

None of which is very good news for BA.

Its pre-Covid model relied on business travellers paying top dollar for flexible tickets.

While there may now be more leisure & VFR travellers prepared to pay for premium cabins, they won’t pay for those fully flex fares.

I agree volume will return but the business/leisure/VFR mix will be very different, and that’s an issue for BA.

mikeyfly

We should probably trot off to OMNI world

TTmex

Indeed, @KARFA will be uploading pictures of his band 1 brunch from the Friday morning hyperloop from Leeds to Dubai.

I don't see a return to normal pre Covid times soon and I envisage mask wearing being a long term thing. Public health in general will have a new approach and fear of new pandemics will make some countries very nervous. I'd imagine bioscreening will become quite a normal part of travel. Just hope it doesn't involve nasal swabs. Tech is progressing fast and a rise in nationalism will lead to tougher restrictions on travel overseas. I also agree air travel will become more privileged and the wealthy will be able to travel freely, while the lower socioeconomic classes will be told to stay home.


Just some musings and predictions and not things I'd want to happen, just "predictions" of what might

GumshoeW12

And yet the Americans have also, so far, not budged on their 15 month-long effective ban on Brits entering their country.

A ban that has never been reciprocal.

crazy8534

I understand and agree with the sentiment.

However, there is a problem- this is not a virus that simply causes old or vulnerable people to drop dead in the street or in their home. It is a disease that causes a symptomatic, vector spreading phase to be followed by a deterioration and then a phase that requires extensive respiratory (ventilator) support and uses an intensive care bed until you die or get better.

So the fundamental problem is that unless you are going to say that you are not treating covid anymore or maybe you are not treating covid in people who have refused a vaccine or perhaps not treating covid in people who don’t wear a mask etc. any increase in infections is met by an increase in the use of critical care facilities and pressure on expensive, limited healthcare resources. Eventually this reaches the point where if you are in your 20s and have a car accident or in your 30s and need a cancer operation then those facilities are no longer available to you and you may die. As far as I can see there is no clear workable solution to this problem yet that doesn’t involve non-pharmacological intervention to prevent the spread of disease (ie lockdown).

So in answer to the OP’s question- last year I had no idea we would still be in the situation we are in now and unfortunately now am increasingly pessimistic about a return to normal within the next 12 months. I very much hope the population vaccine programme works brilliantly and I am wrong.

MatJarosz

Normal normal? Probably not for some time, I can't see countries like Brazil coming off of the naughty list for a long time.

But I can see most other countries becoming safe in the coming months, for as long as none of the variants undermine any of the existing vaccines between now and when the booster jabs are manufactured and distributed.

Professor Yaffle

Hence the priority to get all aspects of the economy open and fully functioning, so that there is a tax base to pay for the NHS

OGG flyer

Well well well, not sure we need another thread on speculation, I am try to control myself not to speculate excessively as I used to.

All I say it is stupid to aim to have borders closed until there a 0 cases and 0 variants. This will never happen and if that is what some governments aim at (Australia?) , then even our grand kids will be unable to travel. Pure madness.

I am with this guy from Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security (Bloomberg):


And I am not allowing this madness to stop me anymore and I am making multiple bookings from ~Q3 2021 onwards. But then I run a business from home and I am location independent so can afford to self isolate, not everyone has this luxury.

Furby

Ok, so maybe I am out in in the left field but I think things will start to get back to almost normal by the end of this year, albeit with a requirement to be vaccinated but that was the case back in the 60's and 70's when traveling to many countries and over time it will not be a big deal to prove.

Pent up leisure travel will pick up the slack until business travel picks back up which it will, primarily because one company will start sending personnel to meetings instead of Zooming it as a perceived competitive advantage and others will start to do the same for fear of it being at a disadvantage. That plus the fact that many perceive foreign travel in business class to be a status symbol and will be lobbying hard for it to return with whatever arguments they can muster and they will succeed in time.

HIDDY

Yes I suppose it's all down to the destination. S America is yonks behind the likes of the UK at the moment as are certain other countries. If anything, Argentina i in a worse situation than it was many months ago. Until they get a ruddy move on with their vaccination programme nowts going to change for a while.

Speedbirdsouth

Be interesting to look back on this thread in the months and years to come. I suppose the problem with normal is we are so far from normal now it seems impossible to even have a stab at it’s return.

from the start of covid I have been optimistic for the industry but every time, for whatever reason that has been misplaced.



masks will eventually not be mandatory but I assume this pandemic has changed the west, if not for years to come, maybe forever. As we saw pre covid some passengers from Japan, especially who used to wear masks in airports so I think we will see masks for sometime to come, albeit optional.

business travel, very hard to tell, I can see the arguments for reduced business travel forever with the fast advance of technology, but I do think there is great value in face to face so think it will return to near pre covid levels in time but probably not quote ‘normal’ levels.

leisure travel will boom again I think, and return quicker than business. Many people who have jobs throughout maybe have saved more over the last year as they haven’t been travelling, going out etc and have increased disposable income, we have all lost a year plus from covid and many people may think after this, what the heck, life is too short, let’s finally do that bucket shop trip we kept putting off, and we have all I think realised the importance of what we have missed, friends, families, experiences, making memories so many will want to embrace travelling with friends family etc

as another poster remarked, the barriers to travel in the short term will put off many, even the least prohibitive measure of testing is an added expense and potential hurdle. Once testing is dispensed with and travel can become easy again they we can move towards ‘normality’

and then we have the game of politics, playing to the masses and nationalistic approaches.

I’d like to think come Q1 2022 onwards we can travel to much of the world without restrictions and then normality as such can start to return, but how will governments around the world approach the medium term? That’s the great unknown.

so for me, my gut says on the way to relative normality by Q1 2022 with a relatively strong summer 2022 as much of the world will be fully vaccinated and hopefully the mass hysteria will have died down by the , but who knows ...!

one thing I would add, and again just my opinion, I think with business travel slow to recover and who knows to what levels, BA being a premium airline (I appreciate it’s all relative)! The short approach will be of course be bums on seats to wherever they can fly to to bring in much needed revenue, and ‘new money’ but the medium term approach of targeting premium leisure will be key to BA, I know the LHR/LGW approach we all knew pre covid has changed forever but the pre covid LGW approach I think will stand BA in good stead, larger W cabins and a focus of premium leisure. I was surprised to see BA drop SEZ as I would think routes like SEZ, in a similar way to the success of MLE, MRU, Caribbean etc will do well for BA. A focus on online and airport upgrades, again I think will do well for BA moving forwards

Confus

While I understand why some people are itching to fly again - especially on a frequent flyer forum - there are many reasons why now is not yet the time to do it. Close to a third of the UK population has yet even to be offered a vaccine, and of those who’ve had their first, many (most?) are yet to have their second. Populations in other countries (i.e. where we’d be going) have a much lower rate of vaccination than the UK, and many have large vulnerable populations. There are serious variants spreading fast in unvaccinated populations. We’ve spent the last 14 months flitting in and out of lockdowns, meaning many people haven’t seen family in a year or more, and may possibly be heading for another one (we don’t know yet). Allowing mass travel over the summer is a high-risk strategy. Or we could limit it until we’ve vaccinated everyone here, allowed other countries to catch up, and encouraged domestic restrictions to be eased safely and people to move around here first. And whether you agree it’s a good thing or not, money will be spent here this summer that would otherwise leave the country... the government is not stupid in recognising that.

I don’t think it’ll be very long before international travel can once again be encouraged. But I do think it’ll be a few months more - so autumn/winter rather than spring/summer. And honestly, however keen I am to jet off again, I don’t think that’s the wrong thing to do overall.