Opinion by Andy Besant, director, Travel Experiences, Collinson

With holiday travelling put on hold due to ongoing restrictions and unclear travel booking advice, and another holiday season just around the corner, many people are asking the same question – when can we expect any sense of travel normalcy to return?

The nationwide lockdown imposed all over the country restricted movement of 1.3 billion people to curtail the spread of Covid-19. Domestic passenger flight services saw a cautious resumption with quarantine restrictions imposed only two months after the initial lockdown. However recently, several states have started incentivising Indian travellers to boost tourism. For example, the State Government of Uttarakhand has announced an incentive of ₹1,000 for the accommodation of travellers visiting the state. According to the revised guidelines by the Ministry of Civil Aviation, domestic airlines can now operate with 60 per cent capacity of their pre-Covid-19 services. International flights still remain suspended in the country due to the pandemic, though special international flights are operating under the Vande Bharat scheme as well as under the bilateral air bubble pacts signed with various countries since July 2020.

And yet, amidst the uncertainty, frequent flyers are ready to return to the skies as soon as restrictions are lifted and it’s safe to do so. A recent global survey of 22,000 frequent flyers in the Priority Pass programme found that a stunning three in four frequent flyers (71 per cent) are ready to return to travel either immediately or within the next three to six months.

At the same time, Covid-19 has changed what frequent flyers want and need. The survey found that unpredictable factors such as quarantines and border controls represent frequent flyers’ top concern about returning to air travel – 74 per cent identify this as a worry, and half of them are willing to pay for a Covid-19 test to help reduce quarantine mandates. When asked which measures would make them feel most confident about future air travel, testing at the airport was singled out as the top driver of confidence.

Delivering on frequent flyer needs by safely easing restrictions will necessitate a broad and collaborative industry strategy including airport PCR testing. The UK’s first test-on-arrival pilot programme spearheaded by Collinson and Swissport for Heathrow Airport that includes a dedicated state-of-the-art test-on-arrival facility is now ready for use at Terminal 2, subject to government approval.

The fact that most frequent flyers are prepared to return to air travel within the next half-year or even sooner is encouraging, and could turn out to be an essential lifeline for the global aviation and tourism sectors.

The closing and opening of travel corridors in recent months indicates that the travel recovery will not be a straight line. In this evolving landscape, frequent travellers won’t regain their confidence unless they can see that their expectations are being understood and catered to – from access to testing that will enable the safe avoidance of quarantine periods, more social distancing measures introduced into lounges to new innovations for a more contactless airport journey. If frequent flyers can get access to the right travel experience, they will return to the skies when it’s safe and encourage others to do the same, championing and leading the travel recovery for all.