Opinion: Airline strategies and what to expect in 2022

Providing customers with value across the entire booking journey will be integral to driving positive customer experiences and outperforming competitors.

Australia re-opened international borders to fully vaccinated tourists and visa holders in February, putting airline recovery top of mind. While this was welcome news for the airline industry following two years of disruption, cancellations and long wait times on customer support lines, it’s not simply a matter of opening Australian borders and returning to normal. Australian international travel also relies on destination countries being open to visitors and restrictions being minimal.

We’re starting to see some sectors of travel rebounding. For example, the number of international flights being booked for business purposes increased more than 400 per cent in just six weeks since the reopening of Australia’s borders, according to data from Flight Centre. This sharp increase in traffic creates operational and competitive pressure on airlines. In the business travel space, we can expect travel in the small-to-medium business sector to recover more quickly due to the entrepreneurial nature of smaller businesses combined with the relatively relaxed travel policies when compared with large corporate organisations. Larger enterprises will likely have moderate resumption of travel, but factors like the “Zoom effect” will impact the number of approved business trips.