Travel industry takes the road to recovery

Quick response

Brendan Sobie, an independent aviation analyst and consultant based in Singapore, said airlines are quickly responding to the resumption of international travel in Asia Pacific. Carriers are resuming services suspended since the pandemic and aggressively promoting routes that have continued to operate despite limited demand and extremely low passenger numbers.

"There are opportunities, particularly in markets where quarantine-free travel is again possible, but the pace of recovery will be slow and overcapacity will be a concern for some time, impacting profitability," Sobie said. He added that a full recovery could take a few years and that in the meantime there will be setbacks.

Sobie said that to survive, many airlines will need to recapitalize and restructure.

Take Australia, for example. From April 2020 to last month, scheduled international passenger traffic fell by almost 98 percent, according to a report written by Sobie this month. The pandemic has so far cost Australian airlines some A$13 billion ($9.5 billion) in international revenue and also about 21 million passengers.

"While much of the region is finally starting to recover, several countries have not yet reopened and it could be several more months before international travel resumes across all markets in Asia Pacific," Sobie said, adding that the crisis is far from over.