Tue Sep 21, 2021 10:13 am
There is no reason why some of these countries in Asia cannot open to fully vaccinated travellers from Europe and North America. For some reason, the mentality in Asia still seems to be to keep the virus out at all costs, rather than open in a safe and sustainable manner. While that was understandable initially, vaccination rates in the more 'developed' Asian economies are comparable to the West so there is no reason why borders cannot start to open in a controlled manner to Europe and North America.
The EU is now lifting the slots usage to 50%, which is causing cries of protectionism from certain Asian countries. But I think the EU is right, baby steps forward need to begin. Locking down borders, allowing in effect no one to come and go is not sustainable in the long run. Further, there are airlines in Europe who are willing to use those slots, creating business, jobs, and tax revenue from the unutilised slot assets. CX has just revised down Q4 capacity from 30% of pre-pandemic to 13%. That is not sustainable in any measure. Sure, I get it runs into politics with the HK government wanting to open to China first, but there is no reason why fully vaccinated business persons, who test negative, or any other person for that matter, cannot visit Hong Kong, or another Asian country with good vaccine takeup, spend money or do their business, comply with the respective covid regulations, and leave without it being a mass threat to the resident public.
I would like to say we should start to see some meaningful pickup in Q4, but I don't see it while the closed-door mentality persists. If CX's move to cut capacity is a bell-weather for the regional aviation economy then it does not bode well. For the time being, growth will probably only be intra-Europe, TATL and to a much lesser degree to South America.