Greece Opens To Tourists, Anxious To Move On From Crisis

Greece began opening to tourists on April 19th with few bookings but hopes for a better season to help make up for a 2020 devastated by the coronavirus pandemic.

On Rhodes island, where most visitors are from abroad, hoteliers are scrubbing, polishing and painting in anticipation of a make-or-break year.

"We're preparing the hotel in order to start as soon as the government gives us the green light," said George Tselios, general manager of Sun Beach Hotel, whose customers are from Scandinavia, Germany, Austria and Britain.

Greece will formally open on May 14 but starting Monday, tourists from the European Union, the United States, Britain, Serbia, Israel and the United Arab Emirates will not quarantine if they are vaccinated or test negative for COVID-19.

Tourism, which generates a fifth of Greece's GDP and one in five jobs, is vital for an economy which had climbed out of a decade-long slump only to slip back into recession last year as COVID-19 struck.

In a normal year, Rhodes would have already laid out the umbrellas for a season that runs from March through October. In mid-April, it resembled a ghost city.

Shuttered luxury resorts towered over a long, sandy, empty coastline. Beach towns normally bursting with crowds of British tourists were silent, with boarded up shops, tavernas and bars.

Many have been closed since 2020, when just 7.4 million people visited Greece, fewer than any year in its decade-long economic crisis and down from a record 31.3 million in 2019.

From hotels to restaurants and daily cruise boats, the many businesses surviving on state aid cannot afford another lost summer.

"Most of them feel the country cannot survive another crisis," Rhodes's deputy mayor for tourism, Konstantinos Taraslias, said.

Nearly 600,000 tourists visited Rhodes last year, down from 2.3 million in 2019. Just over half its 650 hotels opened, the hoteliers' association said.

WIDESPREAD TESTING

Greece says it is better placed this summer thanks to widespread testing, quarantine hotels and plans to vaccinate islanders and tourism workers.

"We've done everything within our power to have a better season," said George Hatzimarkos, governor of Greece's most popular region, the south Aegean islands, which besides Rhodes includes Mykonos and Santorini.

"We'll be absolutely ready," by mid-May, Hatzimarkos said.

But bookings are few and most for August to October, said the president of Rhodes' hoteliers, Manolis Markopoulos, forecasting a year of last-minute reservations.

"We can understand it because guests really want to be sure that they will fly," he said. "But that does not mean that we will not get bookings later."

While Greece fared better than much of Europe in containing the first wave of the pandemic, a continuous rise in infections has forced it to impose several lockdowns to protect its strained health service.

Tourists will be subject to lockdown restrictions, which include night-time curfews. Restaurants and bars have been closed since November.

Giannis Chalikias, who manages nine businesses on Rhodes, said only one is open and struggling to meet the obligations of the remaining eight.

"We're going through an unprecedented situation," he said. "We're waiting day by day for people to get vaccinated... so that we can open and have a normal season."

By Karolina Tagaris

Travelore News: American Airlines Will Drop Flights To 15 Cities In October

American Airlines will drop flights to 15 smaller U.S. cities in October when a federal requirement to serve those communities ends.

The airline blamed low demand during the coronavirus pandemic, which has triggered a massive slump in air travel and huge losses for the carriers. Airlines and their labor unions are seeking billions in new taxpayer relief.

American said its schedule covering Oct. 7 through Nov. 3 will drop flights to cities including Sioux City, Iowa; New Haven, Connecticut; and Springfield, Illinois.

“This is the first step as American continues to evaluate its network and plans for additional schedule changes in the coming weeks,” the airline said in a prepared statement.

More than half of the cities that American is dropping have no other airline service. It will be a major blow to Tweed-New Haven Airport, but the airport’s executive director, Sean Scanlon, held out hope that the loss will be temporary.

“I’m confident that we will see other carriers here once the industry bounces back from COVID regardless of what happens with American,” Scanlon said.

A massive pandemic-relief measure approved in March set aside up to $50 billion in cash and low-interest loans for the nation’s passenger airlines. American was the largest recipient — $10.7 billion if a pending loan wins final approval from the U.S. Treasury Department.

In return for taxpayer dollars, airlines were barred from furloughing workers and were required, in most cases, to continue serving destinations they had before the pandemic. Both of those conditions expire Sept. 30.

Passenger airlines and their labor unions are lobbying for an additional $25 billion to keep paying workers and avoid furloughs through next March. Cargo airlines and contractors would get $7 billion.

The push by airlines and labor has received significant support in Washington. A majority of the Democratic-controlled House endorsed the additional money, so did 16 Senate Republicans. President Donald Trump spoke favorably about helping the airlines when asked about the proposal.

However, the provision is wrapped up in discussions over a larger virus-relief package that would include extended unemployment benefits and, Democrats hope, aid to cities and state governments. The fate of that measure is unclear after negotiations between congressional Democrats and the White House broke down more than a week ago.

An American Airlines executive cited the stalemate in Washington for the airline’s decision to cut service to some destinations.

“We have been holding off, hoping that we would come to some sort of agreement that would extend (the payroll money) and would extend the service requirement. That broader negotiation does seem to be stalled, and this is an unfortunate casualty of that,” said the executive, who spoke on condition of anonymity to explain private discussions about the decision.

Without more federal money, airlines may lay off or furlough tens of thousands of workers as early as Oct. 1. American has warned 25,000 workers they could lose their jobs. United Airlines has sent notices covering 36,000 employees. The final number of cuts will depend on how many employees take offers of buyouts, early retirement or long-term leave.

The requirement to preserve most routes that airlines flew before the pandemic has been unpopular with airlines because many of them carry few passengers. The Transportation Department agreed to let airlines drop a few cities if other carriers continued flying there, but many other requests were denied.

American Airlines lost more than $2 billion in its most recent quarter.

Other airlines declined to comment on their plans.

Industry analysts believe American did not simply ax cities with the fewest flights or seats. The airline likely considered other factors, such as competition and important customers, they said.

“It’s a network planner’s nightmare to pull out of a city,” said Jim Ogden, a product director at aviation data firm Cirium and a former network planner for American. “When you close down a city, you’re cutting those customers off to your entire network.”

American could continue to serve the smaller cities in a limited capacity, through flights at nearby airports or by selling tickets to flights operated there by another carrier, a practice called code-sharing.

Other cities that American dropped from the October schedule are Del Rio, Texas; Dubuque, Iowa; Florence, South Carolina; Greenville, North Carolina; Huntington, West Virginia; Joplin, Missouri; Kalamazoo-Battle Creek, Michigan; Lake Charles, Louisiana; New Windsor, New York; Roswell, New Mexico; Stillwater, Oklahoma; and Williamsport, Pennsylvania.

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Dave Collins in Hartford, Connecticut, contributed to this report.

David Koenig can be reached at www.twitter.com/airlinewriter

Survey Of 14,000 Travelers Shows Domestic Travel Is About To Boom

AirportParkingReservations.com, the largest airport parking aggregator in the U.S. and Canada, reveals domestic travel demand through massive online survey from early May

While most travel has been put on pause because of the COVID-19 pandemic, a May 2020 survey indicates new travel trends lean toward domestic travel. As industry leaders, AirportParkingReservations.com and ParkSleepFly.com reveal what the next step may look like for travelers.

"Our customers are telling us that they would like to travel soon," says Carlos Chilin, General Manager of AirportParkingReservations.com and ParkSleepFly.com, "They've indicated that a big factor for their decisions will be the health and safety protocols implemented to make them feel protected. Tourist locations in the United States have a big opportunity to capitalize on the pent up demand that should come as travel increases."

Based on a survey the companies conducted in May 2020 of more than 14,000 U.S. and Canadian travelers, AirportParkingReservations.com and ParkSleepFly.com foresee domestic travel becoming the first choice for that demand. While most respondents (75%) are holding off on rebooking any previously cancelled plans, 57% said that if they were to travel in 2020, it would be domestically in the U.S. and Canada.

The opportunity for domestic travel demand increase is not limited to just air travel. While flights aren't completely ruled out of domestic travel, 43% of respondents said they were interested in taking a road trip in 2020. They also indicated, at 63%, a willingness to drive up to 300 miles for a vacation.

The comprehensive data from this survey shows how eager the travel community is to support their local travel industry. Domestic travel and road trips will be the next big trend once restrictions for COVID-19 are lifted.

About AirportParkingReservations.com & ParkSleepFly.comAirportParkingReservations.com, Inc. is the leading airport parking aggregator in the U.S. and Canada. Founded in 2000, it has almost two decades of experience developing and operating online travel platforms, including ParkSleepFly, Inc.(https://www.parksleepfly.com), AirportParking.com, AboutAirportParking.com and ShuttleFinder.com. Since 2000, these platforms have made more than eight million individual reservations for travelers. The company is headquartered in Santa Monica, California.

Southwest Airlines Changes Boarding Process: What You Need To Know

Southwest Airlines has announced some changes to its usual boarding process in order to better help keep proper social distancing practices during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Travelers will now be boarding the airplanes in groups of 10, with people only lining up on one side of the Southwest’s boarding poles. This will help customers “spread out,” according to the airline.

That’s a big difference than what we’ve seen in the past with as many as 60 people — 30 on each side of the boarding pole — huddled together and waiting to board.

The airline is also asking passengers to download their mobile boarding pass prior to leaving home in order to limit the amount of exchanges they make with others and to plan on arriving at the airport earlier than usual to allow for new check-in and security processes

.Southwest recommends eating before traveling, since drinks and snacks will no longer be served onboard in order to limit contact with others.

Southwest is also one of many airlines that will begin requiring passengers to wear face masks while traveling.

These are just a few of the measures that the airline has implemented in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Others include “using electrostatic anti-microbial spray treatments, cleaning aircraft between each flight using a disinfectant with the same grade that’s used in hospitals and restaurants, implementing physical-distancing measures, limiting the number of passengers onboard,” according to the Southwest website.

Source: https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/05/01/southwest-airlines-changes-boarding-process-what-you-need-to-know/