Before the outbreak of

the pandemic, Javier Gandara had his office in the seat

x

of the flight

x

Easyjet who played that day.

There were several per week.

Today his office is a Zoom screen and he misses all those flights that he missed before.

He is the general director in Spain of the Easyjet company and president of ALA, the Airline Association, which groups 80 airlines that operate in Spain.

This has been one of the sectors hardest hit by the crisis, as it is an industry with very high costs and the pandemic has drastically limited mobility.

The new strains of the virus and the continuous restrictions complicate a recovery that was expected for Easter but which, says the manager, will probably be later.

The worst forecasts for 2020 have been confirmed ... There has been a drop of more than 72% in air traffic in Spain.

We have returned to the level of the 90s, we have gone back 30 years.

In confinement, no goods were flown, except for goods or repatriation, and in June it seemed that the activity was reactivated, but in August it was truncated, especially due to the decisions of the United Kingdom.

We do not know when the recovery will be, we believed that at Easter, but it will be complicated, because now it does not seem that in two months things will change, but from May or June, in summer, we hope that this recovery, although slow, be steady.

You have to lay the foundations to travel safely again. What are those foundations to regain the confidence of the traveler? Make the tests compulsory in a systematic way in roundtrip, that they are affordable and fast and that they are done in a harmonized way.

That restrictions be removed, because it makes no sense to ask for a test and force a quarantine.

If this is complemented with vaccines, it will get people to travel again, with zero risk, no, because that does not exist, but it will be mitigated.Will the recovery of traffic at a pre-pandemic level, expected for 2024, be later than expected?

Now we are scheduling flights from one month to the next and we are modifying it as we go, so it is difficult to make predictions.

Eurocontrol, in its most optimistic scenario, saw a faster vaccination scenario, but now it expects that in 2021 50% of the flights that were operated before the pandemic will fly in Europe.

With the current situation, it is difficult to think of a recovery for Easter, it will be more towards summer.

First, domestic traffic will recover and long-haul traffic will be slower. If supply falls, what impact will this have on prices and routes?

We have an unprecedented drop in demand and supply has to adapt.

The companies are trying to maintain as many routes as possible although with less frequency of flights.

Even so, in Europe in December 6,000 routes were lost that were previously done and have been temporarily stopped.

In prices, we have stimulated the little demand that there was by lowering prices and that will continue.

Now they are trying to encourage people to book in the summer, if the conditions are met.

But in the medium-long term we believe that flying will be just as cheap as it was before. Barajas has been criticized as a sink for contagions ... Since May there have been just over 4,000 imported cases, so it does not seem that that was the If we look at the data, many countries have rescued their most emblematic airlines, do you think that this aid should be extended to the entire sector?

The ideal would have been a pan-European aid scheme where everyone, depending on traffic, would have had access to these aid.

This has not been the case and each country has established its own schemes, most of them through credit.

These grants came with restrictions, because with that money you cannot buy an airline, for example.

So the bottom line is that we have ensured the airlines' survival without distorting the competitive environment.

If the survival of the companies is not guaranteed, it will be difficult for tourism to recover.

In Spain 85 %% of tourists arrive by air.

We are doing a lot in this. What kind of help are they asking for?

In Spain there have been generic aid (ICO, ERTE ...), but direct aid would be needed, a specific plan for the tourism sector in general.

Aid that can be for travelers, vouchers to reactivate demand as in Italy, and that people have money to spend on trips, aid to compensate Aena so that it reduces airport charges ... Do you have forecasts of job losses?

In December, 82% of the employees in the sector who were in ERTE in confinement continue in this situation.

This mechanism has made it possible to maintain this structure at this time of transition while waiting for demand to recover. Will there be concentrations or bankruptcies?

Now, in the short term, except for the operations that had already been announced, such as Iberia and Air Europa, it is not very predictable, because the companies have little liquidity and the condition for bailouts is that other airlines are not bought.

In the long term it is not ruled out that a company disappears and that there is this type of operation, a greater concentration.

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