It is coming up to Christmas (if you couldn’t work that out already from all the commercials and the supermarkets). When it comes to the holiday season, people tend to travel a lot, this can often be by aircraft, thanks to our increasingly global world. But how does this affect the airline industry as a whole?
How does Christmas affect the airline industry?
Christmas often sees a huge increase in travel, where a large part of that is via aircraft. This sees airlines increasing capacity and routes over the holiday season, in order to cope with the increased demand. People tend to travel in order to see friends and family, especially across the world, such as the UK, US, and Australia.
But thanks to this, airports around the world are forced to close off parts of their terminals due to drunken behavior. This leads to delays at these airports, which has a knock-on effect throughout the world, as these flights are often delayed departing, which means they are delayed arriving as well.
The use of business jets also increases, as a businesses and businessmen find that Christmas can often be one of their busiest times of the year. Due to this, many businessmen are forced to take many last minute trips before the holiday season is upon us. These last minute business trips can often lead to many private airports, or air terminals being crowded, and even the private jets having to be hangared outside, which can cause issues with ice.
Despite these facts, many airports tend to open for shorter than usual. PrivateFly reports that most airports adopt a bank holiday work schedule, or aren’t open to begin with. This is obviously, to allow the ground crews and ATC workers to get a few days off, and spend them with their family. This could also mean that many amenities at the airports that are open, aren’t open.
Christmas also tends to affect the customer’s wallet, as the holiday season is considered a peak day. And thus, the airlines charge you more for your overall flight. Sometimes, this is justified, due to the extra wages, landing costs, handling costs, fuel costs etc. of the flight, however, sometimes, it isn’t warranted, but airlines do it anyway.
Strikes sometimes happen, no one likes to be forced to work Christmas Day, or any other day over the holidays. So when this happens for years on end, many airline employees tend to go on strike in order to get back at the airline. Airline employees tend to understand that the holiday season is one of the two major peaks, which means that you can often see delays from your airline.
Sometimes, you will be placed onto another airline, other times, you will have to wait. You probably won’t have to worry about this too much this year, as it happened last year, but next year might be a completely different story…
Is Christmas entirely good for the aviation industry?
The holiday season sees many different emotions, not just in aviation, but through all industries, no matter how big or how small. Sometimes, major airports see strikes, or some drunken people break part of an airport, but usually, the holiday season is quite good for the aviation industry as a whole.Â
The aviation industry tends to have two major peaks in the year: over the holiday season; and over the summer. This is why so many low cost long-haul airlines go under, as they can’t keep themselves liquid over the lull periods.
For travelers, Christmas Eve, and Day, can be some of the best times to go flying, as they are always less crowded, as people wish to spend Christmas with their family, rather than in an airport, or stuck on an aircraft.
Even though the holiday season is also one of the two yearly peaks, this is not the main reason it is beneficial for the aviation industry. It is also one of the major times for tourism, where aviation and tourism go hand in hand.
The people who fly, often come with cash. This cash is to be spent on things like souvenirs, food, and in Xmas sales. This cash is spent on local businesses which helps the local economy to expand. This too has a knock-on effect to the whole national (and thus international) economies.
The only real downside to this is that the money isn’t being spent on the local economy of the person’s home nation. However, this is easily made up for, by the tourist exchange, we so often see over the holiday season.