Air traffic in the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region is recovering slower than in North America and the Asia Pacific (APAC) regions, mostly due to increased travel restrictions in European countries.Global ratings agency Fitch said the EMEA region’s air traffic is still at about 40 percent of its 2019 capacity, compared to 70 percent in the USA and APAC.

The return of leisure travellers is driving airlines’ traffic revival in the region, said Fitch, although a full recovery is still three years away and is also dependent on a return of business and long-haul passengers.

EMEA carriers stay under significant pressure as a result with most ratings remaining on negative outlooks, the ratings agency said.

“Significant pent-up demand for leisure travel after a prolonged period of travel constraints will be the main driver of air-traffic recovery in the medium term,” said Fitch.

“We believe that long-haul international and business travel will be slower to come back. Although some business travel could be permanently lost due to the increased use of virtual meetings, we expect most of it to return in the long term.”

Fitch said carriers that are better positioned to benefit from these trends are low-cost carriers (LCC), such as Ryanair and Wizz Air.

Others such as British Airways and Etihad have larger exposure to long-haul travel and will find it harder to recover traffic, the agency concluded.

(Writing by Imogen Lillywhite; editing by Daniel Luiz)

 imogen.lillywhite@refinitiv.com

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