Ged’s update
Update Ged Copacabana beach, Rio
from
Low Season Traveller
Well what an interesting start to the main holiday season it has been here in the UK. At the time of writing, it is the end of June and already we have started to see reports of socalled over-tourism coming from parts of Europe. Venice has announced its new tourist tax with hefty fines for those not paying it and destinations like Greece (and Rhodes in particular) are al ready talking more about spreading the economic benefit (and burden) of tourism more evenly throughout the year.
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Our airports have seen chaotic scenes over recent weeks and there is a feeling that these scenes will be replicated as we enter the traditional summer holiday period. The airlines had ramped up their flights for the summer but upon realising that the airports were clearly unable to cope with 2019 flight levels, have subsequently had to reduce their flight schedules causing frustration and chaos. These problems are not unique to the UK. It’s being replicated all over the world. Large numbers of redundancies
were made during the past two years in the aviation, tourism and hospitality sectors as companies sought to shore up their outgoing expenses in light of the global tourism industry entering a form of hibernation due to covid. Sadly, as a result, many of those made redundant have left the industry and this has created a huge staff shortage in many areas. So, this summer there will be scenes of chaos and crowding at airports all over the world as flights are cancelled, baggage stacks up and of course prices increase due to fewer flights. The war in Ukraine has led to fuel rises which are unparalleled in recent memory. Whilst we are seeing the effects of this at the fuel pumps and in our energy bills, the full force of these cost increases has yet to really show itself in aviation. But it is coming. Airlines tend to “hedge” on fuel up to a year in advance in order to protect themselves from any major price fluctuations. This means that most
