The European Travel Commission has released their Update of U.S. Travel to Europe, with some interesting findings.
Overall, the report says, trans-Atlantic traffic continued to rise in June, with leading carriers reporting an average 4.1 percent increase. With average capacity increasing only 0.8 percent, the average load factor was high at 88.3. British Airways was the only carrier for which traffic declined, but by a bruising 8.9 percent, due to cabin-crew job actions.
U.S. traffic to Europe dropped sharply in April, with visits down 19 percent, according to the latest numbers from the U.S. Dept. of Commerce. A double-digit decline was projected, as April was the month of the Eyjafjallajokull eruption. The decline was still steeper than expected—the sharpest one-month decline since August 2002.
With the April numbers in, the off-peak season (October-April) ended with 5.34 million U.S. visits to Europe, down 4.5 percent from ’08-’09. The outlook for the summer and the remainder of the year is for slight growth, at best.
High airfares and this month’s slide in the value of the dollar aren’t helping the comeback in U.S. travel to Europe.
The British Airways-American Airlines ‘joint venture’ won approval from the European Commission and the U.S. Dept. of Transportation. Beginning this fall, the Oneworld partners will operate as a single carrier across the Atlantic.
Go to www.visiteurope.com for more information.
