The risk of a second lost winter has already tanked shares of airline stocks, with the Bloomberg EMEA Airline Index down 18% this month. Singapore and Japan are among countries that have said they’re considering tighter border restrictions. The airline said it’s keeping its operations under review as the situation evolves. 30 after one employee tested positive for Covid-19 and staff were sent into quarantine. “As you add barriers to travel such as the PCR tests and isolation requirements, all that does is changes the incentives.Īirlines now face a return to the uncertainty of shifting rules and public-health developments that threw customer plans into chaos and undermined demand earlier in the pandemic.īritish Airways, for example, halted flights to Hong Kong through at least Nov. “Christmas bookings will obviously be weaker than we had expected prior to the omicron variant,” he said. Leisure travel will also see an impact, while friends and relatives visiting loved ones after long absences are more likely to go through with a trip, said Alex Irving, an analyst at Bernstein in London. was shifted to hybrid from in-person, because the new testing and isolation requirements would have caught out some attendees set to arrive on Tuesday, according to a person familiar with the matter. The group arranged for testing at two nearby hotels where delegates who are guests can self-isolate while awaiting results.Ī separate, internal corporate event in the U.K. Organizers of the World Aviation Festival in London told attendees the event will go on as scheduled starting Tuesday, the day the new U.K. While the full impact will get clearer over coming days, “this will be problematic for business travel - particularly inbound into the U.K.,” said Martin Ferguson, a spokesman for American Express Global Business Travel. low-cost carrier EasyJet Plc said Sunday its flight schedule was operating as normal, “however we continue to monitor the situation closely.”

Spain and Switzerland tightened access for arrivals from Britain, whose travel comeback has quickly been thrown into reverse. Israel closed to all inbound foreign nationals for 14 days, while the Philippines said travelers from European countries including Switzerland and the Netherlands won’t be welcome for several weeks.ĭutch Find 13 Omicron Cases Strain Sweeps Europe: Virus Update re-introduced mandatory PCR tests for all arriving passengers and said they must self-isolate until receiving a negative result. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.(Bloomberg) - Airlines, passengers and businesses scrambled to respond to a deluge of travel restrictions announced over the weekend to slow the spread of the omicron coronavirus variant.Īn initial spate of flight bans from southern Africa, where omicron was first detected, gave way to more wide-ranging measures that will make travel more expensive and less convenient - if possible at all - recalling earlier days in the pandemic.

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