Black summer for the airline industry. While several companies have to cut jobs by the thousands in an attempt to survive the health crisis, airports are not doing much better in the midst of the post-coronavirus crisis. There is no rush in the airports this summer with attendance down 50 to 80% depending on the region. Between the fear of contamination on the plane and the complexity of traveling abroad, air traffic is at its lowest. Penalized by the constraints directly related to Covid-19, such as the countries on the red list, the aircraft also suffer from the disenchantment of the French, who prefer the car for the holidays.
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Roissy is doing better than Orly, Toulouse in the hard
Take the example of Roissy Charles-de-Gaulle: according to data from Flightright, a site specializing in compensation for delays in air travel, the leading French airport only operated 10,600 flights in July. Against 22,000 last year. Attendance divided by two therefore. And the airport is doing the best. Elsewhere in France, there are 50% fewer flights in Nice, 60% in Nantes and Marseille, 70% in Orly and Lyon. And it goes up to 75% less activity in Bordeaux and even 80% in Toulouse. Barely 30 flights per day at Blagnac airport.
All this is quite logical despite everything because this summer, the French prefer holidays in France. Short journeys therefore, which they make primarily by car. Besides the plane, the train is also experiencing filling difficulties. And the situation in the aviation sector should only improve very slowly: Augustin de Romanet, the boss of Aéroports de Paris, believes that traffic will not return to normal before 2024, or even… 2027.