International Air Transport Association (IATA) warned today of the “drastic increase” in flight prices.
The International Air Transport Association (IATA) today warned of a “drastic increase” in flight prices if airlines are forced to operate with free seats between passengers to guarantee distance, speaking of a 49% rise in Europe.
"IATA does not support the imposition of measures of social distance that would leave the middle seats empty", defends in a statement the international association, which represents about 290 airlines from 120 countries and 82% of world air traffic.
Alerting to the impact of these types of measures on the economic viability of operations, upon their resumption after the lifting of restrictive measures related to the covid-19 pandemic, IATA argues that, “with fewer places to sell, unit costs [charged each passenger] would increase dramatically ”.
And, according to the accounts of the international association, in order to be able to cover the costs of operations and make them viable, the tariffs charged per place in Europe could even rise 49%, going from an average value of 135 dollars (124 euros) to 201 dollars (184 euros).
According to IATA, for these accounts a weighting factor of 79% was considered, which counterbalances with lower than usual occupancy rates, given the major financial difficulties of airlines resulting from the crisis generated by covid-19.
At a time when the European Commission is preparing to issue recommendations on the resumption of air connections, IATA expresses its opposition to these measures of social distance on board, stressing at the outset that “the evidence suggests that the risk of transmission on board aircraft is low ”.
For this entity, it is first necessary to ensure that, temporarily, both passengers and airline crew use protective equipment such as face masks.
"The use of masks by passengers and crew will reduce the already low risk, while avoiding the dramatic increase in air travel costs that social distancing measures on board would bring," argues IATA.
According to the international association, even if countries temporarily instituted the measure to leave the place of the free environment, “it was not possible to ensure the recommended separation for social distancing to be effective”, since “most authorities recommend a two meters and the average seat width is less than 50 centimeters ”.
In addition to the masks, IATA recommends that carriers measure the temperature of passengers and workers, adopt boarding and disembarking processes with less contact, limit movements within aircraft during flights, perform more frequent and thorough cleaning of aircraft and simplify aircraft. food services.
This position of the sector is similar to that already expressed by the European Commission.
