Covid-19 restrictions on travel will continue “for the foreseeable future” and produce more airline failures, the head of Etihad Airways has warned.
However, Etihad chief executive Tony Douglas argued a failure to hit carbon reduction targets would see more airlines fail than the pandemic.
Douglas said: “The situation changes almost every day because of travel restrictions easing in some places or becoming more restrictive in others.
“We remain optimistic because there is huge pent-up demand, but there is every chance this [situation] will continue for the foreseeable future.”
Speaking on a webinar hosted by European air navigation organisation Eurocontrol, Douglas declined to echo other aviation chiefs in criticising continuing government restrictions.
He also refused to criticise UK restrictions which see the UAE on a red list of countries requiring mandatory hotel quarantine and multiple tests for all arrivals.
Douglas said: “The travel restrictions all around the world have been in the main for a good reason, to attempt to slow transmission of the pandemic.
“We’re delighted that in Abu Dhabi this week, the US, Germany and Spain have been added to our green list [for travel], and the UK was already on our green list.
“I’m somewhat disappointed there is still a restriction on travel from the UAE to the UK given we have the highest vaccination rate per capita in the world. I just hope that in one of the forthcoming revisions of the UK green list the UAE will be added.”
He argued: “If many countries maintain the trajectory with vaccination programmes they are on at the moment it’s reasonable to assume, if we look three to six months into the future, that there will be a significant improvement and we will see green lists significantly increased.”
“Latent demand will probably see us get back to the 2019 level [of traffic] by 2023-24. We’ll see a one-to-three-year recalibration, but demand is still very much there.”
However, he suggested there would be failures during this period, pointing out: “We have already seen a long list of airlines go into administration and it’s reasonable to assume that list will get longer.”
Yet Douglas warned: “Sustainability is the biggest thing out there. More airlines will fail as the result of an inability to embrace the reality of what we all have to do about that.”
In the meantime, he argued “a form of electronic travel pass will ease the way in which our health status will be attested” when travelling.
Douglas explained: “We’ve been trialling Iata’s Travel Pass [Covid certification app]. We are confident a digital visa will become the norm, be it Travel Pass or the EU Digital Certificate.”
He reported: “Etihad was the first airline, way back in August, to PCR test 100% of guests no matter where [they board] in the network. We’re the only airline to do that. You can’t board an Etihad flight unless you have a PCR test or vaccination approval.
“We have 100% vaccination of cabin crew and flight crew.
“That has given us a huge body of data, [and] the data tells us that 99.52% of everyone who has travelled with Etihad since last August has travelled Covid free.”