Global Passenger Markets: A Peek Into the Future by Bob Lange T he recovery of passenger travel through the COVID-19 pandemic has been fitful and geographically disparate, characterized not so much by the disease itself but by a diversity of containment strategies and the differences in their evolution over time. 2021 has seen the approval and growing availability of vaccines worldwide. In several jurisdictions we can speak of mass vaccination strategies, but easing of travel restrictions has been hampered by the slow pace of mutual recognition of one territory's rules by other governments. Some clear patterns have emerged: Large domestic markets with a single regulatory perimeter of control, such as China and the United States - but equally Russia and India -have been the fastest to recover. In some cases, they saw a return to 2019 levels for a short period before being challenged by the emergence of variants and local or national lockdowns. Large domestic markets with a single regulatory perimeter of control have been the fastest to recover. Although Europe is largely a single market, it has been subject to a variety of national containment policies that converged only in the summer holiday period with the adoption of a single electronic document for vaccinated passengers. This arrived just in time, given that European carriers are more dependent on the summer season than their peers in other regions. Long-haul traffic has remained moribund, and air services have been largely underpinned by cargo traffic and the need for the major hubs to maintain connectivity. The decision to open Europe-to-U.S. markets to fully vaccinated travelers FIGURE 1: VACCINE ROLLOUT OUTLOOK (12 years old and up) Sources: Our World in Data, UN, Airbus Global Market Forecast (Sept. 2021) Jetrader * WIN TER 2021 * 33