Bilbao Airport Route Development Committee forecasts that in the summer “a large part of the pre-pandemic connectivity” will be recovered.

Bilbao Airport Route Development Committee forecasts that in the summer “a large part of the pre-pandemic connectivity” will be recovered.
Bilbao Airport Route Development Committee forecasts that in the summer “a large part of the pre-pandemic connectivity” will be recovered.

The participation of the Bilbao Airport Route Development Committee in the great international connectivity event, Routes Reconnected, has been “highly gratifying” because the forecasts are very positive. “The summer is going to be powerful in terms of the recovery of mobility and leisure and holiday travel”, they point out.

The general perception of the airlines is that from June onwards, the tourist movement in Spain will be important, as soon as greater mobility is allowed and this is safe, without the extra costs derived from the PCRs and other conditioning factors associated with the health alert.

In this context, Bilbao Bizkaia will be “super-connected” with the rest of the communities, above all with the most touristy areas, although “as we are not a purely holiday destination for Europeans within the Spanish market (“Sun&beach”), our international connections will be somewhat more limited”, they qualify.
“We will gradually recover our main international destinations but not all the ones we had in 2019. It will take a little longer as the airlines are going to focus on launching the most in-demand routes. In other words, those that connect with the main Spanish tourist destinations (islands, Mediterranean…) with Bilbao as the second link”, explained Fly Bio.

All in all, the outlook is “very positive” and the summer season will allow the territory to “recover an important part of its connectivity prior to the pandemic”.
The committee estimates that in the medium term, around winter 2022, Bilbao Bizkaia will once again be an “interesting destination for airlines with a view to obtaining new international routes or reissuing some lost routes that we will probably not recover this summer”.

The next important event on the Committee’s agenda is World Routes, which will be held in Milan next October. “Our strong presence there can be an important point in the final re-launch of our connectivity in 2022”.

Overall, Routes Reconnected, which ended on 29 April, has been an enriching event for the committee for many reasons. “We get a very direct sense of how companies plan to approach the summer season and how they perceive the recovery of the sector in the medium term. It also allows us to remind them that we are here and that we hope they will remember us when planning the relaunch of the routes”.

 

03/05/2021