Omicron could cause airlines winter 'traumas': Emirates

Dubai's national airline Emirates' president Tim Clark said the Omicron Covid-19 variant could inflict "significant traumas" to the aviation industry in December, depending on how countries respond to it.

In an interview recorded for the Reuters Next event, Clark said the variant was "bound to have some effects" on the international travel recovery. He expects more clarity on the variant and whether vaccines will still be effective against it by the end of December, and said "hopefully things will "ease off".

"It could of course go the other way, if it is a variant that has sinister capabilities in terms of infections and symptoms that develop into possible hospitalisations," he said.

He said December is a crucial month in terms of travel demand.

"If that is lost, or the winter is lost to a lot of carriers, there will be significant traumas in the business, certainly the aviation business and the periphery," he said.

Emirates has had to close most services between the UAE and South Africa, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia and Zimbabwe as travellers coming from these destinations were banned from entering the country. Clark said it is difficult for Emirates because the airline received some demand from these countries for the December period.

Different countries are taking different approaches to try and slow down the spread of the new variant, with Israel, Japan and Morocco choosing to close their borders, while "the US is taking the view that vaccination, testing and tracing is one way of dealing with it", he said. The US allowed all vaccinated foreign travelers to visit the country on 8 November, which supported travel and jet fuel demand last month, but yesterday tightened entry requirements.

The Omicron variant comes at a time when the aviation industry was starting to see signs of a recovery. Airlines "have benefited from an uptick in demand in the last month or two", Clark said, "but we were always alive to the fact that there we could be variants of concerns coming at any time and that we would have to adapt our schedule accordingly".

He noted that the reintroduction PCR testing, and self isolation and quarantine in some European markets could weigh on travel demand too. But he said so far bookings have remained "strong" and he hopes re-entry into these countries would not become "so draconian that it prevents travelling at all".

By Caroline Varin