Travel Week in Review – June 24th, 2022

Days after the United States repealed its Covid-19 testing requirement for inbound air travelers, U.S. Travel Association released its full biannual forecast for travel through 2026 – including both travel spending and volume – which projects that all segments of travel, in spite of rising inflation, will surge in the short term due to pent-up demand and consumer savings. However, this is not expected to last, leading to slower growth in the later years of the forecast. Read More…

Mask mandates have been lifted, travel restrictions are falling away and travelers, who’ve been biding their time for the past two years, are eagerly turning out to take their post-pandemic vacations in droves. Unfortunately, the aviation industry seems to find itself ill-prepared to handle such passenger volumes, leading to the airport chaos we’ve witnessed at airports around the globe in recent months. The aviation sector pandemonium seen over the past few months has been blamed on several factors. Read More…

U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg wants airlines to do better. After multiple high-profile operational meltdowns in recent months, particularly over Memorial Day weekend, Buttigieg called a meeting of airline CEOs on Thursday. The goal of the meeting was to avoid a repeat over the Fourth of July and throughout the summer. All mainline and regional airlines were represented at the virtual meeting. Read More…

Yellowstone National Park will partly reopen after record flooding and rockslides following a burst of heavy rains that led the park to be closed for the first time in 34 years. The entire park, spanning parts of Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho, was closed to visitors, including those with lodging and camping reservations, from last Monday, as officials inspected damage to roads, bridges, and other facilities. The closure came as Yellowstone was gearing up to celebrate its 150th anniversary year. Read More…

London’s Gatwick airport said on Friday it will limit the number of flights during the summer travel season in light of continuing labor shortages, a move that will force airlines to cancel some flights. Britain’s second-largest airport will cap flights at 825 per day in July and 850 in August in order to avoid chaos and combat same-day cancellations by airlines, a decision it said comes after a rapid upturn in air traffic levels. Gatwick usually operates about 900 flights on peak days in August. Read More…