Major airline CEOs have stated that normal airline scheduling won't come back to normal until 2023. That doesn't mean that there won't be plenty of flights in the coming months as travel bubbles are slowly emerging in different parts of the world. Travel bubbles are when borders of neighbouring countries who are close to each other open up their borders to drive some sort of economic boost to these countries. Philippine Airlines just announced their flights for June 2020 and while it isn't like it used to be, it s a good start with several international flights. Check out PAL's June flight schedules here.
As airlines try to bounce back, we've seen a great deal of cheap flights because airlines are desperate to fill those planes and get some cash coming in. It's cheap for NOW but will they stay cheap forever? Well of course not.
Let's not forget that airlines have lost billions over these past 3 months and they will eventually need to recover those billions somehow in the future. Airlines can't recover until people can find it safe to travel again. Hygiene concerns will slowly fade but expect a sluggish road to recovery for these airlines.
For the interest of safety and of course to entice people to book, airlines have gone the extra mile to clean and disinfect planes. This means adding extra costs to the airline such as hiring extra cleaning staff, sanitation equipment, chemicals, personal protective equipment for employees, etc.
Now if you're a budget airline these can be considered huge extra costs as this extra cleaning keeps planes on the ground instead of in the air flying passengers and earning revenue for the airline.
Bottom line
A lot of factors will ultimately affect how cheap flights will be and for how long. Competition from a specific airport is still the single biggest determinant of airfare prices followed by jet fuel prices.
Promotions and travel deals will always be there in the future. But we won't see them as low and as crazy as we see them now. How long will we continue to see them at this much of a bargain for passengers will depend on how fast the airline industry is able to recover from this pandemic.
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