UK travellers to lose airport options as airlines cut routes over coronavirus
UK holidaymakers outside of London risk having their flight options cut after new research showed some of Britain’s regional airports could lose routes due to the pandemic.
Aviation experts OAG said Manchester Airport could face a battle to hold onto some of its long-haul services, while Stansted, in Essex, might also see airlines scrap destinations in an effort to stay viable.
Becca Rowland, analyst at OAG, said the world’s biggest hubs could see route networks reduced but it is the “secondary” airports that face the greatest loss.
“[Networks] will be smaller because there will be fewer passengers flying for some time, and airlines will scale back networks in response to lower demand,” she said, adding that some carriers might drop 60 per cent of their destinations.
“While the news has been filled with stories about the challenges for airlines, the coming months will be just as challenging for airports as they work hard to retain air services, connectivity and airline customers.”
She cited Manchester Airport and London Stansted along the likes of Berlin, Helsinki and Brussels, as those airports “to be most concerned about”.
Manchester is the UK’s third busiest airport, behind only Heathrow and Gatwick. Last year it welcomed 29.3million passengers. Stansted, in fourth, welcomed 28.1million.
“It isn’t that they will lose a large number of services but that air services they have worked hard to win may be jeopardised and the path to recover them may take years,” she said.
The global lockdown saw air passenger demand fall by almost 100 per cent, with airlines grounding entire fleets for weeks if not months. Now, as travel restrictions ease around the world, carriers are plotting tentative resumptions.
OAG said it believes airlines will respond to the coronavirus crisis in one of two ways, by cutting routes or scaling back frequencies.
It warned that Manchester, which has a two-hour catchment area of 22 million people, could lose flights to Asia, operated by Cathay Pacific, Hainan Airlines, and Singapore Airlines.
“Manchester is, after all, a secondary airport and there are already flights operated to the larger airports in the UK,” said Rowland. “Combine this pattern with airlines needing to preserve cash and to ensure all operations make a network contribution, and some airline failures, and secondary airports will inevitably see some long-haul services axed.”
“Long haul destinations may feel like a distraction for the foreseeable future but once lost they may never come back.”
Manchester Airport Group, which owns both Manchester Airport and Stansted, declined to comment.
In April, Leah Ryan, managing director of Alton Aviation Consultancy, told Telegraph Travel she believed that British Airways could see its destination map shrink because of the pandemic turn down.
She said: “I think [cutting routes] will be part and parcel of it. When you look at how airlines operate, they will need to see how and where demand comes back.
“Do people in the Greater Manchester area or Greater London area want to fly to Malaga three days a week when this is over? Forward bookings suggest to all the airlines around the world that the demand just isn't there yet, so is it going to impact the routes that they will offer? Most certainly, because when airlines are hemorrhaging cash they need to make decisions on where to fly and where they can make the most money.”
