A report by travel analytics company ForwardKeys estimates that the United States’ transatlantic travel ban on most non-US residents entering the country from the 26 Schengen countries, introduced last Friday 13 March in response to the Covid-19 outbreak, put two million airline seats in jeopardy, while another 1.3 million seats were put at risk of elimination from the market by the extension of the ban to the UK and Ireland as of midnight on Monday 16 March.
The airlines that look set to suffer the worst are US carriers Delta Air Lines and United, which each stand to lose around 400,000 seats. British Airways is next, followed, in order, by American Airlines, Lufthansa, Virgin Atlantic, Air France, Aer Lingus, KLM and Norwegian.
In terms of countries, the UK is set to be worst hit, potentially losing over a million seats. It is followed in order by Germany, standing to lose around 500,000, France, around 400,000, the Netherlands around 300,000, Spain, around 200,000 and then Italy and Switzerland, each with around 100,000.
Olivier Ponti, Vice President Insights, ForwardKeys, said: “While a few flights are still operating, bringing permanent US residents and their immediate family back home, this is an unprecedented collapse in air travel. In an incredibly short space of time, this ban has decimated the world’s busiest and most profitable segment of the aviation industry – transatlantic travel.”
