Europe’s airlines are gradually resuming passenger operations as governments begin to relax lockdowns and travel restrictions, and Eurocontrol expects that more than 8,000 flights a day will operate across the European network in the second half of June. That would mark a quadrupling on the “rock bottom” of April 12, when just 2,099 flights operated across the network. The region’s air navigation service providers handled 5,090 flights on June 1. Commercial flight activity has started to show “some positive movement upwards,” asserted Eurocontrol director-general Eamonn Brennan. Still, flight volumes remain a fraction (15 percent) of their level a year ago.
Operators’ planning departments, however, are struggling to firm schedules and plan ungrounding of fleets owing to the lack of coordination between EU countries on reopening borders and differing health protocols. The European Commission last month released guidelines to EU countries, calling for a restoration of freedom of movement in the bloc in a harmonized, non-discriminatory way. But the recommendations are non-binding and member states are opening frontiers, removing travel bans, and imposing health safety measures on their own terms and at their own pace, leaving the bloc’s Single Aviation Market—once seen as one of the great successes of intra-EU cooperation and integration—and the passport-free-travel Schengen area fractured.
Denmark, for instance, late last week decided to reopen for travel from June 15 for Norway, Iceland, and Germany while keeping its advice against all non-essential travel in place for all other countries, including neighboring Sweden, which has seen a higher number of Covid-19 infections, until August 31.
Cyprus will lift the ban on international passenger flights from June 9, with conditions and not from all countries, however. The reopening will initially allow passengers to fly to the island from about 20—mostly EU—countries, provided they undertake three days prior to departure a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test confirming that they are virus-free. The health certificate requirement will lapse on June 20 for passengers on flights from “low risk” COVID-19 countries Greece, Malta, Bulgaria, Norway, Austria, Finland, Slovenia, Hungary, Israel, Denmark, Germany, Slovakia, and Lithuania, but will remain in place for travelers from Switzerland, Poland, Romania, Croatia, Estonia, and the Czech Republic. The list, which the government said will be updated weekly, excludes the country’s two main tourism markets, the UK and Russia, as well as other EU countries such as Belgium, France, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Spain.
Greece will allow international passengers to enter the country starting June 15 without having to systematically undergo a PCR test or submit to quarantine, unless they come from airports that appear on EASA’s list of airports located in areas with high risk of transmission of the Covid-19 infection.
The global list, effective from May 29, currently includes airports in eight EU countries, prompting complaints from airlines operating from those facilities that feel disadvantaged compared with their neighboring counterparts.
Airlines for Europe (A4E) laments the haphazard approach. “The dire lack of EU coordination in reopening intra-EU borders means airlines are forced to go through the recovery process with one eye shut—now at the start of our busiest season,” A4E managing director Thomas Reynaert told AIN. “With the EASA/European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control guidance material now circulating, we expect better coordination and above all increased certainty for travelers. Only then can a meaningful recovery process take place,” he stressed. “This is why we continue to push for harmonized rules and a mutual recognition of measures to avoid airports or destination countries imposing uncoordinated health measures on travelers. This will ultimately allow citizens to safely plan and enjoy their well-deserved summer holidays in Europe. We call on member states to take their responsibility in this process now that the EU has issued guidelines both at Commission and EASA levels.”