United States reopens borders to vaccinated travelers. Bookings boom

• Covid: from tomorrow the US will reopen the borders, yes to the entry of the vaccinated

• The US reopens to travelers vaccinated by the EU, UK and China since November

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08 November 2021 After 18 months, the United States reopens land and air borders to passengers who have completed the vaccination cycle for Covid, thus ending the closure decreed in March 2020. Travel restrictions, introduced by former President Donald Trump, are were retained by the current president, Joe Biden. From today, the White House has announced, foreigners who want to enter the United States for visits considered non-essential, such as tourism or most family reunions, will be able to do so both by plane and across the land borders of Mexico and Canada.   

Vaccinated foreign travelers arriving from countries hitherto subject to travel restrictions due to the pandemic will also be able to access the US, a list that also included the 26 European states of the Schengen area, as well as the United Kingdom, Ireland, Brazil, China. , Iran, South Africa and India. The Department of Homeland Security has already warned that "due to the increased volume of travelers, waiting times at customs will be prolonged" so it recommends having documents on hand and showing "patience", as indicated in a statement released last week.

The opening of the borders comes shortly after the United States has reached an immunization rate equal to 70% of the adult population. The US is already administering booster doses to over 65s and last week began vaccinating boys and girls between the ages of 5 and 11. 

The United States will accept all vaccines that have been authorized by the World Health Organization (WHO), including that of AstraZeneca. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) considers a person "fully vaccinated" if it has been 14 days since they received a single-dose vaccine or since they received the second of a two-dose vaccine. For now, WHO has not authorized some of the vaccines that are administered in Latin America, such as the Russian Sputnik V and the Chinese CanSino. In addition to the immunization test, international passengers will need to submit a negative Covid test taken three days before departure.Children between the ages of 2 and 17 will not need to be vaccinated to enter the United States but will need to have a negative test. Children under 2, on the other hand, are exempt from both the vaccine and the test.

boom And there was an immediate boom in airline ticket bookings. Air France, British Airways, United Airlines, the companies that usually depend heavily on transatlantic and transpacific routes, have added flights, chosen larger planes and made sure to have enough staff to cope with them.

Aeroporti di Roma also celebrated together with the carriers that operate direct connections between the United States and the capital's airport. The current November offer includes up to 4 daily direct flights between Leonardo da Vinci in Fiumicino and the United States, operated respectively by Delta Air Lines for New York Jfk and Atlanta, United for Newark, and by Ita Airways for New York Jfk. Offer expected to increase with the addition of further weekly frequencies in December. In anticipation of the next summer season 2022, additional routes operated by the carriers currently present are already on sale, in addition to the resumption of American Airlines flights. 

The announcement of the lifting of the restrictions by the White House had been expected for months by families who had remained separated, by business travelers as well as by tourists who decide to spend a holiday in the States every year: with the Covid pandemic, Washington had drastically limited passengers from the rest of the world, from the countries of the Schengen area, to the United Kingdom and China, passing through India and Brazil.   

With Christmas approaching, reservations are already flooding. Thus, British Airways already a week ago saw searches for flights and stays in some US cities explode by 900% for the days leading up to 25 December. At American Airlines, the day after the announcement, bookings were up 66% in the UK, 40% in Europe and 74% in Brazil. Today's flights have also been stormed.

For airlines, "there is no before / after November 8," an Air France spokesperson noted. On the one hand, they filled their planes better, which for a long time traveled with many empty seats. And they are gradually adding more places. The French airline recently went from three flights a day between Paris and New York, its busiest route, to five. On the Houston line, it will replace Airbus 330s with Boeing 777s, which offer more seats. Air France expects to return to 90% of its pre-Covid capacity in the United States by March 2022, up from 65% in October. 

After probably a bit of a vacuum in the January-February period, companies expect a recovery in the spring and especially in the summer, traditionally the most profitable season. At United, the number of flights to Latin America and its tourist destinations has already returned to the levels of 2019, although traffic remains at only 63%. The American company focuses heavily on transatlantic flights: in the spring it will open five new destinations (Jordan, Portugal, Norway, Spain), will add flights to London, Berlin, Dublin, Milan, Munich and Rome, and will reopen the connections interrupted during the pandemic between including Frankfurt, Nice and Zurich.   

On the Asian front, traffic is expected to pick up but more slowly. Singapore Airlines, which took advantage of the opening of a corridor for vaccinated passengers between Singapore and North America in October, still plans to return to 77% of its pre-Covid flights between the two zones in December, notably with the reopening. lines to Seattle and Vancouver. For Burkett Huey, Morningstar's air transport specialist, the companies have enough planes to cope with the influx of travelers: "Few large planes were actually withdrawn from fleets in 2020, but nothing that completely changes the landscape." 

In terms of employees, however, there may be some problems. In the United States, where airlines have implemented extensive plans to incentivize exits at the onset of the pandemic, American and Southwest have recently had to cancel thousands of flights due to a shortage of ground and cabin staff. It now remains to be seen when business travel will return to pre-Covid levels. In fact, for their transatlantic flights, airlines have so far favored some key lines with large aircraft to include more comfortable seating for business travelers. And they have integrated travel with domestic flights in the United States and Europe. But as business travel dwindles, they could offer more direct routes to tourists, using new, more efficient planes.small but still able to travel long distances, like the A321neo.