Virgin Atlantic expects “a breakthrough” in leisure travel next year but foresees corporate travel returning more slowly.
Juha Jarvinen, Virgin Atlantic chief commercial officer, told the Business Travel Association conference: “It’s great we can start flying. We believe 2022 will be a major breakthrough year for travel.
“In 2020, roughly 13% of UK GDP went in excess household savings and people can’t wait to spend it. Next year we’ll have 19% more Upper Class seats to the Caribbean. You might think that is crazy, but it’s not.”
Yet assessing the corporate travel outlook, he said: “We believe SMEs will be first to come back. Big corporates will conserve their budgets and intra-corporate travel will be last.
“My view is the biggest [shortfall] will be in short hops – one day out and back. Some of it’s not necessary. Hopefully, people would rather invest in one proper trip and do more meetings. The big question is will conferences come back?”
Jarvinen hit out at the government, saying: “The UK government supported the sector the least of European governments. They somehow took the airlines for granted.
“We lost at least half a year and the UK was left behind. The industry was collectively offering solutions to the government, but they decided to ignore [us]. It’s the only word for it.”