On a wing and in a prayer: Airlines are expected to have a short setback for Omicron Business and Economic News

Airlines looking for “pretty good bookings” during the holiday season are hoping Omicron won’t be the key.

The omicron variant of the coronavirus virus, which has begun to revive international demand for Asia-the-Pacific international travel, has slowed as governments tighten rules, but airline leaders have said they hope the move will continue.

International traveler traffic in Asia-Pacific In October it was 5.4 per cent of pre-pandemic levels, the lowest in any region of the world, but some border rules eased in Australia, Japan, Thailand and Singapore in November, with the discovery of the Omicron variant at the end of the month.

“We were seeing Omicron accelerating art openings,” Campbell Wilson, Scoot’s chief executive of Singapore Airlines ’budget, said at a CAPA Aviation for Aviation event on Tuesday.

“Basically, we’ve seen a break since then,” he said. “We haven’t seen many steps back, although there are some exceptions.”

Companies have blamed a depressed international travel demand for a patch on travel regulations, which is essential for a return on profits, and Omicron seems to be making that problem worse.

It has Japan prohibited for foreigners, the United States requires a COVID-19 test 24 hours prior to flight, and Singapore travelers must test it daily for seven days before arrival.

‘A fly in the ointment’?

The emergence of the Omicron variant comes after the decline in travel after the Delta strain originated in India and spread around the world, but vaccination rates have risen since then and health experts are measuring whether the new mutations cause as serious a disease as other variants.

“We still haven’t figured out if this is a key or a fly in the ointment,” Subhas Menon, CEO of Asia Pacific Airlines, told Omicron. “It simply came to our notice then fly in the ointment it’s still good to use. ‘

Passenger confidence is often closely linked to government forecasts, said Sue Carter, head of APAC at technology company Travelport. “We’ve seen some searches go down week after week,” he said. Omicron is also programming headaches for airlines to adapt to changing requirements. Australian, Sydney and Melbourne vaccinated travelers need to be isolated from their home or hotel within 72 hours due to the Omicron variant.

That compares to an earlier isolation-free policy, which led Hawaiian Airlines to add five weekly flights to Honolulu-Sydney starting this month rather than the initial three-year plan, Peter Ingram said.

“I’ll tell you that the planes won’t be full for the first few days,” he said of the route. “But we’re looking at some pretty good reserves for the January holidays. So we think he’s going to recover.”

Qantas Airways CEO Alan Joyce said he hoped to find out about Omicron again, which would remove the 72-hour isolation requirement.