KUWAIT: Air travel fares have recently dropped by 50 to 200 percent to some destinations after resuming full-capacity operations at Kuwait International Airport as of October 24. According to tourism and travel experts, Kuwaiti citizens and residents are eager to travel amid receding repercussions of the coronavirus crisis locally and abroad, where many countries have reopened borders. Airfares had soared due to the limited number of offered tickets, the experts said, noting that the pandemic issue had resulted in closing most airports across the globe and impounding aircraft, thus travel companies suffered heavy losses forcing some to shut.

Fayez Al-Enezi, Head of Kuwait Airways' Media and Public Relations Department, said that the corporation increased flights after the cabinet decided to resume full-capacity operations at Kuwait International Airport, effective October 24. He expressed hope that air travel would be restored to the pre-coronavirus levels, affirming that Kuwait Airways is fully ready and prepared to service many passengers at Terminal 4.

Kamal Kabsha, a tourism expert, said that the tickets' prices dropped by more than 200 percent, namely for the departing flights, however, the fares for incoming ones remained high. Airfares are largely affected by demand and offer as well as costs of main operations, he said, also noting that booking increased by 20 percent before the full resumption of the airport operations.

The path for full restoration of air aviation is not totally paved yet due to a set of reasons such as health constraints imposed by states, namely obligatory quarantines and PCR tests in addition to peoples' concerns of infection as well as uneasy measures at some airports. Full recovery of the travel and air navigation sectors is forecast late 2022 and early 2023, however, the prediction is conditional to vaccinations' capacity to quell the pandemic and easing of the health restrictions, Kabsha said.

Meanwhile, Nassib Adnan, the deputy director of a travel agency, said the Kuwaiti Cabinet decision to re-operate the airport fully contributed to cutting the airfares by more than 50 percent to some destinations namely Turkey, Egypt, France, and Germany. The costs for traveling to some destinations such as the UAE, Britain, India, and the Philippines have remained high as compared to the airfares before the contagion outbreak. He predicted a gradual recovery of the sector in the foreseeable future.

IATA, the International Air Transport Association, predicted in a recently issued report that the local travel demand would increase in phases and reach the pre-pandemic levels in 2022. It also foresaw a decline of the sector losses to $51.8 billion in the end of 2021 and to $12 billion in 2022, compared to $137.7 billion in 2020, when the coronavirus was widely spread inflicting heavy casualties worldwide and paralyzing many sectors namely the air navigation. - KUNA