The travel industry is still struggling with consumer confidence – and things won’t change quickly

Just when the travel industry thinks the coronavirus crisis cannot possibly get any worse, it does.

In March, the world that the UK’s airlines, cruise lines and holiday companies were selling us closed down. By April, these firms turned from vendors to travel dreams into refund machines – and extremely inefficient ones at that, as they battled with suppliers to retrieve cash and restrictions on workplaces.

May had barely begun when the government decided to grab some headlines with a bizarre but presumably positively polled idea to impose blanket quarantine on arrivals from all across the world; those New Zealanders, went the narrative, can’t be trusted, so let’s just assume they’re all carrying the virus.

The requirement to self-isolate for two weeks on return to the UK took a month to impose, effectively writing off the June restart that the travel industry had been anticipating.

At the start of July, the government decided to reverse the policy and allow travel without quarantine to top destinations including our two most popular holiday countries, Spain and France (though not Portugal).

The easement lasted barely two weeks for Spain before it was back on the no-go list with just five hours’ warning.

France and the Netherlands followed in August – but the Portuguese briefly celebrated when they were finally, after five months, deemed to be low risk.

But by the last day of August, the new-infection count had pushed them back into “red” territory, and customer confidence collapsed still further.

September and October, the travel industry hoped, would become the new July and August, as people desperate for sun and sea summoned up the courage to venture abroad.

But any hardy souls who were still prepared to be convinced that they could go on holiday without spending the following fortnight sitting in a room then learnt of the “virus flight” from Zante in Greece to Cardiff.

“Welcome aboard, masks optional,” certainly wasn’t the message from Tui’s hard-working cabin crew, but that is the sense that the prospective traveller has picked up – and now fears they may pick up something worse than jet lag when next they board a plane.

Bad dreams come to an end. The reality for the travel industry shows no sign of stopping.

Yours,

Simon Calder

Travel correspondent