US airlines hope to avoid ill effects of swine flu
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US airlines are downplaying the potential ill effects of the recent swine flu outbreak. With many US carriers already struggling with falling demand, there has been a fear that the recent outbreak may deepen the slump, with a “SARS effect” predicted by many.
However Bloomberg has reported airlines as saying that the outbreak has, so far at least, not had any major impact on bookings. US carriers have not specified how many passengers have altered travel to or from Mexico - the main source of the disease - but US Airways was reported saying that the total was “not significant”.
“Airlines will continue to work with passengers with travel plans to and from Mexico,” the Air Transport Association (ATA) was reported saying in a statement. Of 364,000 flights to and from US airports each week, only 4,000 or 1.1%, involve Mexico, said David Castelveter, an ATA spokesperson.
“For the airlines, it’s small in the scheme of things,” Bloomberg quoted Michael Derchin, an analyst at FTN Midwest Research Securities BLP in New York, as saying. “Assuming this is a confined type of outbreak, I don’t think it’s that big an impact.”
Other travel industry sectors backed a calm response to the outbreak. “It’s far too early to panic,” said Kim Derderian, a Paris-based spokesperson Carlson Wagonlit Travel. “The situation is still evolving.”
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