Despite the fact that the spread of infection is increasing in large parts of Europe, airlines are seeing continued great interest among Swedes in traveling abroad during the autumn holidays.
As the spread of the virus increases, several European countries are now reintroducing stricter restrictions. But despite the alarms about an increasingly serious infection situation, Swedes' interest in an autumn holiday abroad seems to remain relatively high.
Destinations in Southern Europe appear to be particularly popular.
”"We have noticed that interest in traveling has increased somewhat during the autumn, and Spain is a favorite for Swedes. It has been popular to travel there during the autumn holidays and our departures have been more or less full," says Charlotte Holmbergh Jacobsson, Head of Communications at Norwegian.
Airline traffic is severely limited due to the pandemic. For example, SAS is currently able to book just under half of the approximately 800 daily departures that are normally offered.
But even though demand is generally at a lower level now than normal, SAS also notices that there has been pressure on autumn holiday travel to areas near the Mediterranean.
”"We have noticed that many departures during the autumn holidays have been in high demand. There has been an increased interest in traveling from Sweden and we see that people are making decisions at short notice about going," says SAS press manager Freja Annamatz.
France reported just over 52,000 new confirmed infections on Sunday alone, and in Italy the corresponding figure was just over 21,000.
In Spain, where Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez describes the situation as ”extreme,” a national state of emergency was declared again on Sunday. This includes a night-time curfew and a ban on travel between different regions. The state of emergency does not currently apply to the Canary Islands, where the infection situation is not as serious as on the mainland.
Whether the recently introduced restrictions will affect Swedes' demand for travel to countries like Spain is still too early to say, says Holmbergh Jacobsson.
”If a country imposes stricter restrictions, such as curfews, quarantines or similar, then we notice that demand decreases. But so far we have not noticed any major difference.
Source: TT
