Lufthansa CEO thinks long haul markets will reopen with rapid testing before Christmas

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• memesweeper says:

  26 Sep26 September 09:39

  I suspect the airlines, airports and tourism dependent countries would accept the ‘rough and ready’ test as good enough. I’d hope the UK government would go along with this too, with tests required to board UK bound craft. It’s not perfect, but it’s a start.

  Yes, an effective treatment or an effective vaccine would be fabulous, but both are not known to exist yet. We can’t solely pin on hopes on that.

• Doc says:

  26 Sep26 September 09:58

  It’s easy to be critical of the blind growth of the industry when your government keeps putting money into your bank account every time you are in trouble.

  • Doug M says:

    26 Sep26 September 10:42

    Exactly. The quotes are laughable coming from the head of an airline that was insolvent 5 minutes into the pandemic.

    • Lady London says:

      26 Sep26 September 15:35

      …and that has been amongst the very worst for not refunding people.

      “Refunds Department is closed” was reportedly their statement. Against all their stated rules on tickets sold. Quite apart from any German or EU legislation that customers should get their money back for services paid for but not provided. Seems most un-modern Germany. Seems more old East German way or even Russian.

      Was the bear in Germany only sleeping these past many decades but always still there?

      • Doug M says:

        26 Sep26 September 17:55

        German gov amongst those lobbying EU for a temporary rule change/suspension. I’m sure that just further emboldened LH to ignore law.

• Mike says:

  26 Sep26 September 10:27

  I think the thinking here is a bit broken, a test regime implies people are worried about quarantines, I suspect a lot of people aren’t traveling because they don’t want to catch Coronavirus. I’d love to know which is the biggest factor in the reduction in travel (obviously excluding country bans).

  • John says:

    26 Sep26 September 10:43

    The biggest factor is probably the fact that people are not able to enter most countries

    • John says:

      26 Sep26 September 10:57

      100% this for me.

      In my 60s, I’m not worried about catching it travelling. Whatever years I have left I want to be enjoying them, not wasting them stuck at home with restaurants, shops, museums, entertainment etc. shut down, the weather grim and the economy dying.

      • Coucou says:

        26 Sep26 September 13:15

        A ventilator might change your mind considering your age.

      • James says:

        26 Sep26 September 19:03

        And not stuck travelling with restuarants, shops, museums, entertainment etc. shut down?

        • Lady London says:

          26 Sep26 September 22:30

          Good point

    • John says:

      26 Sep26 September 10:59

      Heh, just noticed we’re both John.

      I was was replying to John 10:43, not to myself 🙂

  • GaryC says:

    26 Sep26 September 11:22

    I think there are a number of factors at play here preventing travel. Speaking personally, they roughly order:
    1) Inability to enter a country at all – for example I’d typically travel to the US 6-10 times per year, half of these for leisure.
    2) Future travel being simply too uncertain, with the ever-changing landscape of entry requirements, quarantines, lockdowns and subsequent FCO advice. I’d normally take 1-2 European weekend breaks each month, but I don’t have the time or inclination for constant re-planning of where I can go. The uncertainty around Brexit and potentially having to rely on travel insurance for medical cover rather than reciprocal EU health cover doesn’t help.
    3) The risk of being quarantined and potentially getting sick away from home, particularly in countries with less good medical facilities which may be under strain. The longer the flight, the further from the UK and the lower my confidence in the country’s medical facilities, the higher the risk.

    Sum these up, and what does it mean? Since lockdown I’ve made 5 domestic trips and for the remainder of 2020 have a single trip to Stockholm booked in the BA sale as it looked one of the safer bets.

    • mr_jetlag says:

      26 Sep26 September 15:05

      same here – just checked, YTD last year I had taken more than 40 flights by September. This year I’ve taken 10 – and that’s counting 6 flights on one OTP-PHX run (sigh).

      • Lady London says:

        26 Sep26 September 16:10

        I’ve actually been struggling to arrange 3 necessary trips and I was willing to brave quarantine and – carefully – Covid risk.

        What’s taking me hours and days is flights disappearing. I have cancelled flights I am trying to rebook but no flights are running anymore, for whole runs of days, when I need them. I’m looking at 4 hotel nights for something I”d only need 0-1 for before, and flights only at either end of the day meaning yet another night in a hotel at the airport. Due to no transport that early or late due to flight timings of the only 2 or 3 flights still running each week (formerly 20).

        In despair I watched about 10 days as the moment the slot-sitting decision came out, flights literally dropped day by day out of British Airways”s schedule. Leaving the only travel available looking like a leisure weekend. Otherwise you would have toto stay a whole week.

        All services have now been able to increase the prices too as they can force those who need to travel onto the few services available.
        Miraculously, there are still 3 or 4 airlines operating my key route but why are they operating their flights at practically the same times ?all with the same weekend-only pattern – nothing midweek.

        I’ve had to abandon a 3rd trip because there is a flight that gets me there for the invited day, but it would take me another 2 or 3 days requiring 2 extra unwanted hotel nights, to get home as there are simply no flights that exist to get back.

        Other more cumbersome ways than flying, of getting home including trains, buses and cars would take 24-36 hours. I would consider them, but those operators have tsken the opportunity to also run very few services. Prices are through the roof.

        When you worked out how to frequent fly previously with the aid of sites like this, it was possible to choose to spend in a way that let you stroll on and off planes like buses and yet be ready for any eventuality.

        If this is the future of travel then I am going to change my travel pattern and lifestyle radically. ‘Loyalty’ will be out of reach for all but the very rich (or whose firms are rich) as before.

        • Anna says:

          26 Sep26 September 16:30

          You can shore up your immune defences. In Spain they have been trialling giving viatmin D supplements to hospital patients and it reduced ICU admissions to zero among the supplemented group. Elsewhere studies are showing that the likelihood of contracting the virus in the first place correlates directly to levels of vitamin D in the blood. I feel that having been taking it for 4 years already, together with hand washing/sanitising, a mask and as much social distancing as possible, I would be prepared to get on a plane now.

        • Novice says:

          26 Sep26 September 17:12

          @Anna, you are correct. According to all my research I sort of flagged Vitamin D as important a few months back and I’ve been taking a supplement since March. And, I haven’t had my usual September cold yet either. Also, cleaned up my diet more… I’ve not had junk food since April. I swap now nuts instead of crisps, dark chocolate instead of regular chocolate, a lot of fruit and MGO 300 honey…. I can tell you I’m in the minority who have lost a bit of weight instead of gaining in lockdown… I don’t think I have ever been this healthy and fit in my life as I’m lazy and my work is basically sitting down to write…

          It is ironic that in the middle of a pandemic I feel the healthiest ever…

  • TGLoyalty says:

    26 Sep26 September 11:40

    Honestly think people will travel as long as there’s no risk of quarantines for all and the countries are open for travel.

• BJ says:

  26 Sep26 September 10:49

  You have to wonder what these people do to deserve their big fat pay cheques and benefits. Based on this article, Spohr said nothing more insightful than we could expect of a high school student in a debate on the subject. That he appears likely to believe in Santa Clause doesn’t help.

  • Lady London says:

    26 Sep26 September 16:14

    Santa Claus=the German government?

  • Novice says:

    26 Sep26 September 16:15

    @BJ, I reckon a high school student in a debate would actually be way better on any subject. Have you ever heard teens debating? My parents used to give up and still do if I start a debate on anything.

• Nick_C says:

  26 Sep26 September 13:36

  Reminds me of Jo Swinson claiming she was going to form the next Government.

  • John says:

    26 Sep26 September 14:53

    Would have been better than the two main options

• mr_jetlag says:

  26 Sep26 September 15:02

  It’s an industry conference speech. Having spoken / panelled / moderated at a few, the majority of keynotes are meant to reinforce whatever particular view that industry wants to push – eg “everything will be back to normal”. You will get the occasional “maverick” CEO claiming to “tell it like it is” (but in a way that benefits his particular firm) and sometimes they will even bring in academics or regulators for a balanced discussion that nevertheless reinforces the echo chamber (because people hear what they want to hear).

  Outside the aviation bubble, most people understand that long haul travel will be FAR more difficult and uncertain at least for the next couple of years until COVID vaccines have been properly distributed and even then, there will be occasional shutdowns in hotspot areas. Despite my best efforts for example I’ve had to cancel 3-4 longhaul flights – and that’s after lockdown proper – because of this long tail of disruption.

  • Lady London says:

    26 Sep26 September 16:18

    not just longhaul is prone to disruption and pretty imposdible to book even if you want to. I’ve bored everyone with my post above and that”s about how impossible it’s been to book flights on short-haul even if willing to travel or needing to. It’s not just longhaul.

  • James says:

    26 Sep26 September 19:09

    Benefits his particular firm? Not ‘hers’ or oven ‘their’? How enlightened. 🙃

    • James says:

      26 Sep26 September 19:10

      *even

    • Charlieface says:

      26 Sep26 September 21:05

      The vast majority of CEOs are male, so that pronoun is just reflecting facts on the ground. He/she can be quite cumbersome using it the whole time. Furthermore, in many languages, including some dialects of English, one says “he” if unsure of the gender.

    • Nick_C says:

      26 Sep26 September 23:54

      His is singular. Their is plural.

      How ignorant 😉

• Andrew K says:

  26 Sep26 September 17:55

  Anyone who’s had to use Teams and Zoom for any amount of time will know that for 90% of meetings it’s incredibly inefficient compared to meeting in person.
  Business travel will be important for a long time yet!

  • illuminatus says:

    26 Sep26 September 20:04

    They work just fine. I would say it’s the other way around – at best 10% of all meetings require meeting in person

    • Peter K says:

      26 Sep26 September 22:10

      I agree that zoom etc is absolutely no replacement for person to person meetings. You can get information across well enough from a lecture point of view, but the little interactions that happen before, after and during a meeting are missing. Break out rooms are no replacement.
      You also get zoom fatigue where it is harder to concentrate compared to an in person experience.
      I say this as someone that has had at least 4 zoom meetings a week for several months now.

      • Riccatti says:

        27 Sep27 September 04:07

        Which means we have to enhance the ability to concentrate at Zoom meetings and more skill at extracting the information from it / while working remotely.

        Not dropping Zoom completely and return to the old normal.

• Riccatti says:

  27 Sep27 September 04:15

  Airlines have not enough appreciation about what is happening with remote working.

  It is not realistic to expect that business travel (hence premium-paying, price-insensitive customers) will only reduce by 10-15%. These are rosy dreams and does not show a CEO as a credible person at the helm of the largest German conglomerate.

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