United expects 2021 business, international recovery

United Airlines chief executive Scott Kirby expects business air travel to make a "full recovery" toward the end of the year as the world contains Covid-19, he told the Council on Foreign Relations today.

The US air carrier expects both international and business travel to bounce back from a collapse that began last March as efforts to limit the spread of Covid-19 restricted movement across the globe.

"The last time somebody tries to do a sales call on Zoom is when they lose a sale to a competitor who showed up in person," Kirby said. "Video conferencing existed before — this is nice, but it does not eliminate the need to be with people, to shake hands, to hug people, to go to dinner and get to know them."

Business travel is at about 80pc of levels seen before restrictions on travel and other activities forced a collapse in air travel last March, he said. Domestic leisure travel already exceeds pre-Covid levels as travelers satisfy "huge pent up demand" from a year of restrictions, Kirby said.

US passenger screenings so far this year have increased from an average 761,000 a day in January to more than 1.2mn in March, according to the Transportation Security Administration.

Screenings averaged 1.5mn in the first five days of April, compared to 2.3mn a day in the same period of 2019 and just 120,000 a day at the same time last year.

International travel will also fully recover, but face steeper logistical hurdles, Kirby said. Vaccination records would be a likely requirement, especially Asian and European destinations. China would likely be the last travel destination to ease restrictions, Kirby said.

Travelers and airlines will face multiple standards for vaccination records or other Covid mitigation, complicating travel plans, he added.

"I fear we are going to be in a world where we do have more than one standard, and we started preparing for that," Kirby said.

By Elliott Blackburn