Here we are at the end of August and basically the end of the summer holiday season.

 

Not quite for everyone of course and September is well known as one of those months which is especially well suited for holidays for people without children, for people wanting to avoid children and people wanting to take advantage of the lower off peak rates.

 

This August has been a bumper go-away month, no doubt, and of course many have opted for staycation. Unfortunately the British hospitality businesses have rather tended to shoot themselves in the foot as they have decided to try and make up their losses from last year by increasing their prices this year. This is all very fine but the British are not that easily fooled. Although they have gone on their staycation holidays, many think that there are better deals overseas.

 

So when Michael O’Leary predicts as he has that the aviation industry is going to see a rapid rebound in air travel, one wonders whether this is the chicken or the egg talking! Mr O’Leary, blessed with the skill of the Blarney stone when it comes to speaking out, could either be predicting what could already be seen to be possible, or maybe this is his wishful thinking coming to play hoping that people will fly because they believe it.

 

What is certainly true is that once the lockdown restrictions ended, plenty of people have taken their holidays overseas even with the problems of restrictions, covid tests, potential isolations and quarantines and crowds of people.

 

And that is where the comments of a professor are very relevant – to the effect that he believes we may be reaching that point of equilibrium which will be the number of new cases of covid forever now. What a positively horrifying and depressing thought.

 

Well it is certainly not stopping Ryanair and Easyjet from increasing their schedules as they predict public confidence is returning. It is very difficult to know whether confidence will return with any degree of speed while new cases are running in the UK at the rate of 250000 a week and at a moment when schools are returning and likely to bring about an increased level of transmission.

 

But even British Airways has decided to have a level of short haul flights out of Gatwick. What will be a certainty will be the relief that airport owners will be feeling at the recovery of the aviation business after the vast losses they have sustained. Indeed it makes you wonder how these businesses have been able to survive what has been really a shutdown over such a long period.

 

What, we wonder, will be the government approach to restrictions on travel, traffic light lists and the rest of it while new cases emerge at current levels? Will the requirement for testing continue? Will self-isolation remain a requirement? If the disease is to be allowed to become completely endemic, then perhaps the sooner it does become so the better.

 

Adrian Leopard 31-08-21

 

Photo Bruno Figueiredo