The slowdown in demand caused by the spread of the coronavirus epidemic has led many European companies to reduce their flight programs and put in place savings measures.
One month after the suspension of a large part of long-haul flights to mainland China, where the epidemic started, the increase in the number of cases in northern Italy (655 Covid-19 carriers identified on Friday) as well as in the rest of Europe worried.
The British company EasyJet announced on Friday that it is already canceling flights and plans to delete almost 500 between March 13 and 31, mostly from and to Italy. “These 500 flights approximately represent 11% of the volume of flights (to or from) Italy for the month of March and a small percentage” of the number of flights on the company’s network, the group told AFP.
The IAG group, owner of British Airways and Iberia, has also announced that it has canceled flights to Milan and will reduce its services to the country in the coming days. British Airways operates ten flights a day to Milan from London.
Air France is carrying out a ‘slight adaptation of the program’ with certain flights to Milan, Verona and Venice ‘grouped together’, a representative of the company told AFP. One of the five daily flights between Paris and Venice is for example canceled and the passengers switched to the others. “No decision is made” beyond this weekend, said the same source.
Brussels Airlines will reduce its flights to Milan, Rome, Venice and Bologna by 30% for the next two weeks (2-14 March). The Belgian airline ‘notes a general negative trend in terms of reservations on almost all European markets, but it is the north of Italy which is the most affected’, according to a press release.
And the low-cost Hungarian airline Wizz Air, strongly established in Poland, reduces its flights to Italy from Warsaw and five other Polish cities by around 60%, ‘taking into account the drop in interest in this destination ‘.
The challenge of the summer season
The impact of the epidemic on European air traffic leads companies, whose stock market price is strongly shaken, to set up economy measures.
Easyjet announced Friday a freeze on recruitments, salaries and promotions, a reduction in administrative expenses and an ‘offer of leave without pay’ to its employees.
IAG Managing Director Willie Walsh also announced savings measures he did not detail and refrained from issuing forecasts of financial results for 2020 due to the epidemic.
The boss of Finnair Topi Manner for his part warned that the company’s operating profit in 2020 would be ‘significantly lower’ than the previous year. If the impact is at this stage ‘limited’, he noted in a statement, ‘we are seeing a negative effect on demand. It is difficult to predict how the situation will develop in the coming months. ‘
Highlighting the ‘very significant’ impact of the epidemic on KLM’s revenues, the financial director of the Dutch company Erik Swelheim called on employees to ‘reduce costs to the minimum level to guarantee the safety of operations ‘and announced a whole series of savings measures, in a letter that AFP consulted.
The other pillar of the group, Air France, did the same. Air France-KLM has estimated the shortfall due to the suspension of flights to China alone from February to April to between 150 and 200 million euros.
German Lufthansa also announced on Wednesday hiring freezes and unpaid leave proposals to its employees.
The risk is now that the coronavirus threatens the crucial summer season, where airlines in Europe fill their planes with vacationers going to the sun.
‘The summer season in Europe could be wiped out if the situation deteriorates in Italy and if we see for example a jump in cases in France. We are already seeing that companies are limiting business travel to protect their employees, ‘notes Neil Wilson, analyst at Markets.com
/ ATS
– .
