Is Europe’s aviation recovery in the post-pandemic world led by low-cost carriers?

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic brought many challenges to the airline industry, resulting in an unprecedented crisis. In just a few months after its appearance, the Covid-19 virus became a world pandemic and Europe was the most affected continent. Governments imposed travel bans and restrictions for international border crossing and applied protective measures of social distancing, personal protective equipment use and self-isolation. Together with the public fear of being exposed to the virus, these measures resulted in the largest drop in air traffic ever recorded. European air carriers saw a 74% passenger traffic decline in 2020 versus 2019. In an attempt to survive the crisis, airlines had to review and adjust their strategies. Despite experiencing similar levels of decline in traffic, load factor and RPK, the reaction of various airline models to the pandemic varied. The purpose of this study is to understand why low-cost carriers may lead the recovery in the post-pandemic world. Full-service carriers lost their long-haul and hub-and-spoke markets since travel restrictions were different from continent to continent and connecting flights were no longer efficient due to the decline in demand. Another loss for full-service carriers was business travel which was substituted by remote work and teleconferencing. On the other hand, low-cost carriers were in a more privileged position. The leisure market is generally more resilient to crises. Short-haul, point-to-point travel market was more suitable for the situation considering that travel measures on intra-European flights were similar. Also, travellers became more price-sensitive, meaning that low fares became crucial in the attempt to revitalise the demand. The findings of this study show that the organisational structure and flexibility of low-cost carriers make them capable to recover quicker than full-service carriers in the post-pandemic era.