American Airlines has cut its international summer schedule by 60% to match a sharp drop in demand due to the coronavirus Covid-19 outbreak. The carrier’s seasonal service between Philadelphia and Dubrovnik, which was to run between June and October on a daily basis, has been suspended for the entire summer season. “Nobody is booking travel”, Vasu Raja, American’s Senior Vice President for Network Strategy said. “If we can reduce our capacity this summer, we can reduce our expenses”, he added. In total, American is suspending 25 summer seasonal flights until 2021. It will focus on services into London Heathrow and Madrid, where passengers can connect to flights on its partners British Airways and Iberia, respectively.
Dubrovnik Airport is facing a watershed summer, with airlines cancelling all flights to the coastal city in April, with the majority of services unlikely to resume through May either. Carriers which were to launch new seasonal flights to Dubrovnik this summer, including airBaltic from Vilnius and Qatar Airways from Doha, have cancelled their planned services and postponed them for 2021. Dubrovnik Airport closed its doors for commercial flights on March 19 after several staff members tested positive for the virus. During the month, the airport handled 19.480 passengers, down 66.3% on 2019. Over the first quarter, the airport welcomed 72.406 travellers, down 38.6%.
| Month | PAX | Change (%) |
|---|---|---|
| JAN | 19.338 | ▼ 26.5 |
| FEB | 33.588 | ▼ 0.5 |
| MAR | 19.480 | ▼ 66.3 |
American Airlines’ service between Philadelphia and Dubrovnik proved to be extremely successful during its launch year in 2019. The carrier maintained three weekly services from June until late August and increased frequencies to four weekly during its last month of operation in September. It handled 17.782 passengers during its four-month service run, with an average cabin load factor of 83%.
Comments
How many passengers would Croatia have without toursists? Anybody know?
Of course other countries will have them as well but this crisis will affect the most the countries that had big income from tourism
But yes, I hope people at the coast have some savings from previous years. It will be a very hard year for them.
Talking about billions USD
Sometimes a crisis resets a countries mindset.
In the case of Croatia, in my opinion this Corona virus is a huge blessing for Croatia, it will recycle the country from its dependence on tourism, and set forth a change fron its “easy money” economy, thay geneates over 10 billion euros in 4 months.
Tourism will come back to Croatia no doubt (like it did Greece after their strikes in 2015/2016, Egypt etc...) but surely the Croatians will enveloped newer forward thinking mindsets that will de clutch themselves from their dependent on tourism.
As for Airports and Airlines, ouch, the whole Balkans without exeptions will be awash in 2020.
Most airlines flying to NYC in particular will be affected including JU.
And what if governments use the this crisis to become more authoritarian, like Hungary for example? Nothing really seems obvious to me right now.
Dear friends, we are all in a "Brace! Brace! Brace!" position, there are just no flight attendants arround to scream. In all industries, not just tourism/airline.
Stay safe and healthy.
Regards, from Novi Sad, Serbia.
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