Eurowings says travel is returning to normal, with business travel bookings looking promising and operational reliability improving.
The German carrier, part of Lufthansa Group, said it was seeing increased demand for business destinations such as Vienna, Zurich, London or Milan. In September, it is increasing flights by around 30% in comparison with 2021 and said it is expanding business class capacity on many routes.
The airline said, for example, that it is offering up to 10,000 additional seats from Dusseldorf, its biggest base, to Berlin, Zurich and Milan. From Hamburg it is doubling flights to Amsterdam and from Cologne/Bonn, it is adding more than 6,000 seats to Berlin.
“We are seeing very clearly that demand for business travel has significantly increased following the end of the summer vacations in some federal states,” Eurowings Chief Executive Jens Bischof commented in a press release on August 22, 2022.
“Many business travelers want to carry out their meetings in person and are booking flights,” Bischof said. “Even though we haven’t yet reached pre-pandemic levels, booking levels indicate an increasing return to normality.”
A recent survey, however, showed that disruptions are putting off business travelers. Such travelers typically book more expensive tickets, making them a key source of revenue for airlines across the world.
Eurowings, one of the many carriers to have scrapped flights in summer 2022 after staffing levels proved inadequate to deal with the number of people wanting to travel, highlighted in its release, however, that operations on the ground and in the air are also returning to more normal levels and reliability has improved in recent weeks.