The International Council of Airports in Europe (ACI Europe) said today that the recovery of passenger air traffic to the levels recorded in 2019, before the covid-19 pandemic, should not happen before 2024.
The agency’s forecast has now been revised for a year later, compared to what it had forecast a month ago, reported the agency Efe.
“It will be a slower pace than we would like,” said ACI Europe director Olivier Jankovec, in a statement, calling for an uncoordinated lifting of travel restrictions.
ACI also pointed out that passenger air traffic in June fell 93% compared to the same month last year, despite a slight increase compared to May figures, which decreased by 98%.
European airports received just 16.8 million passengers in June, up from 240 million in the same month in 2019.
These infrastructures are expected to lose a total of 1,570 million passengers in 2020, which will mean a 64% decrease compared to last year.
The drop in revenues is estimated at a total of 32.4 billion euros, a decrease of 67%.
The covid-19 pandemic has already claimed more than 585,000 deaths and infected more than 13.6 million people in 196 countries and territories, according to a report by the French agency AFP.
Measures to combat the pandemic have paralyzed entire sectors of the world economy and have led the International Monetary Fund to make unprecedented predictions in its nearly 75 years: the world economy may fall 3% in 2020, dragged by a 5.9% contraction in the United United States, 7.5% in the euro area and 5.2% in Japan.
