News
Above 50% of Asia-Pacific passengers confident of returning to the skies
September 28th 2021
More than half of the Asia-Pacific’s air passengers are confident they will flying within the next six months, but a big proportion of them expect to travel less and stick closer to home a new survey has found. Read More » About half of those surveyed believed the reputation of an airline will be more significant than in pre-pandemic times when choosing a carrier for an air journey. The Inmarsat Passenger Confidence tracker looked at the attitudes of 10,000 passengers globally, including 4,500 from Singapore, Australia, South Korea, Japan and India. About 91% of respondents acknowledged the pandemic had changed their long-term travel habits, but 51% would be confident enough to travel within the next six months. This was up from 40% in 2020. The Asia-Pacific (APAC) passengers were more confident than the global average about flying precautions, with 46% agreeing COVID-19 passports were a good idea. However, 51% described their behaviour towards the pandemic as “highly cautious” compared with 47% globally. Some 44% of the APAC respondents expected to travel less and 36% said they would travel to destinations less far away from home. Almost two thirds of respondents would like a global set of safety standards to be established for airlines to follow and a support the introduction of standardised set of hygiene practices for pre-flight and onboard services. Pre-flight COVID testing was seen as the most important factor in improving air travel confidence by 58% of respondents.
