Air travel plummets in popularity due to credit crunch

According to a recent report the popularity of air travel amongst UK consumers has taken a real hit as a result of the global credit crunch, with fewer and fewer people able to manage holidays abroad.

Both the difficult financial climate and the weak pound has resulted in many Brits opting to stay at home or stay local when going on holiday, which has seen the number of travellers using British airports fall for the first time in around seventeen years.

It is thought that millions of people could have been put off from travelling abroad because of the weak pound and the financial crisis, and this has been aided by worries about job security that have come about as a result of the recession. Airport passenger traffic has dropped significantly as a result of this, with last year seeing a fall of around 2 percent in passenger numbers compared to the previous year, and with further falls predicted for the course of this year.

Even budget airlines, who have been known for offering rock bottom fares, are not able to revive the slump in international travel, and many have now been forced to add on various charges, which has resulted in their fares becoming far higher than they may have been in the past.

One industry official said: ‘My gut feeling is that the boom in low-cost travel has run its course – the budget airlines are not so low cost any more.’

He went on to state: ‘A decline like this is pretty striking. It is the inevitable consequence of airlines shrinking their flying programme. The growth of overseas property ownership has been a big growth driver in air passengers, but capital values of property abroad are also certainly on the slide. Sterling’s weakening is another factor because a lot of ex-pats rely on pension income paid in sterling.’

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