The pandemic had a very negative and penalizing impact on service activity sectors, including tourism and transport, to which Portugal was not immune. TAP Air Portugal, like Ryanair and easyJet, felt these adverse effects in their operations, forcing them to readjust their operating network. The present investigation aims to assess the effects of the pandemic on these airlines at Lisbon and Porto airports between 2019 (pre-pandemic) and 2022. In methodological terms, the analysis will be exploratory, descriptive, and mostly qualitative, based on the collection of information on the departure flights operated from these airports by the selected airlines in selecting dates. The results obtained show that TAP was the airline company most penalized given its international operation with many countries and their borders closed. In Porto, the results of this company were even more severe, reducing more than 50% of the airports served.
TopIntroduction
The COVID-19 pandemic had a strong impact on the services sector, in particular on businesses with strong mobility such as tourism and transport, in particular air transport. The number of air passengers carried dropped 60.2% in 2020 to 1,808 million (4,543 million in 2019), with global revenue down 54.4%. Losses reached record values in 2020 (USD -137.7 billion) after net profits in 2019 of USD 26.4 billion. Regarding tourism, the behavior was identical, with a 72.3% drop in international tourist arrivals (405 million in 2020 versus 1,466 in 2019), with revenues dropping by 63.2% in the same period (IATA, 2022; UNWTO, 2022).
The current situation in 2022, with a strong recovery of tourism and post-pandemic air activity, has however been hampered by factors related to airport infrastructure (in particular Lisbon airport, along with other constraints at European and American airports), delays with missed connections for transit passengers and luggage left behind, lack of human resources at airports, in air navigation and in airlines.
Likewise, the increase in fuel prices, forcing an increase in air travel prices, together with cancellations for operational reasons, whether due to airport limitations or lack of crews, will have a negative impact on the fragile profitability of airlines (Russell, 2022).
The present investigation aims to assess the effects the pandemic had on the air operations and respective networks of TAP Air Portugal (TAP) as a full service carrier and of Ryanair and easyJet as low cost carriers at the Portuguese airports of Lisbon and Porto, at the end of July and beginning of August from Friday to Monday. The option for these days and for that period has to do with their greater demand on those dates traditionally dedicated to the tourism market and to avoid repetitive patterns over the remaining days of the week. The analysis takes into account the years 2019 (pre-pandemic) and 2021 and 2022, the first in a pandemic season and the second in a period of strong recovery in tourism and air transport.
Thus, the analysis will focus on traditional business models based, in this case, on the national airline TAP and on its hub at Lisbon airport, as well as the low cost models of the low cost airlines Ryanair and easyJet, both with operational bases at Lisbon and Porto airports. Conceptually, attention will be addressed to the evolution of these main business models for greater market hybridization, as these models adopted each other's features and characteristics, making their differentiation more difficult.
A characterization of the main statistical data regarding the evolution of traffic at Lisbon and Porto airports will be also carried out, allowing to measure the impacts of COVID-19 in Portugal.
In methodological terms, the analysis will be exploratory, descriptive and mostly qualitative, based on the collection of information on the departing flights operated from these airports on the indicated dates and mentioned days. The information was collected based on the flights advertised in ANA - Aeroportos de Portugal website.
The results show greater drops at TAP Air Portugal rather than at Ryanair or easyJet given its hub & spoke business model in Lisbon, based on an international network with many of the destinations and borders closed. On the other hand, the loss of a large part of that transfer traffic limits the number of operations to the remaining destinations. In the case of Porto, the reduction in TAP's operation is significant, reaching half of the flights operated in 2019.