In just a few days, the United States will reopen to international air travelers who are fully vaccinated against COVID-19. This will ease tough pandemic-related restrictions that started early last year.
COVID-19 travel restrictions for fully vaccinated international visitors will lift starting November 8. Currently, only U.S. citizens, residents, and foreigners with special visas are allowed to enter the country without being required to quarantine. Now, restrictions are being lifted for more than 30 countries, including China, India, Brazil, and most of Europe.
These unprecedented travel restrictions kept millions of visitors out of the United States, prevented many loved ones and foreign workers from reuniting with families, and of course hurt the U.S. tourism economy – both nationally and locally.
“We had 57 nonstop destinations, including five international destinations prior to the pandemic,” said Stephanie Hawco, the director of media relations at Raleigh-Durham International Airport. “Today we have about 38 non-stop flights and only three of those are international. So, it’s been a big change for us over the last year and a half or so.”
Hawco said the travel industry has taken a drastic hit over the course of the pandemic, however there is hope for a full recovery in the future.
RDU saw higher than expected passenger traffic in September, with more than 800,000 passengers flying through the airport. Hawco said that number was eight percent higher than the expected forecast and even outpaced the national recovery rate by a couple of percentage points.
“We don’t have a real specific answer for why that’s happening, but we’re certainly glad to see the higher number of passengers coming through our terminals,” Hawco said. “You know, it probably goes back to a couple of different factors. We have seen over the last couple of months that the delta variant had impacted traffic, but it looks like that’s been waning. And so, our recovery is really ahead of pace.”
Prior to the pandemic, RDU served more than 14 million passengers in 2019. In 2020, however, the airport faced an unparalleled loss, of which it is still recovering from. Amid initial pandemic restrictions, Hawco said the international airport cut its budget in half and put most of its projects on hold, including $160 million in construction.
“In the spring of 2020, our business dropped to about three percent of 2019 levels,” she said. “So, it really went off a cliff when the pandemic began. Right now, we’re at about 78 percent of a pre-pandemic levels. So, we are recovering very steadily and that’s a great thing to see. Of course, after the numbers we had last year, we were really in survival mode for much of 2020.”
Now, with many international travel restrictions being lifted, airports across the country are looking forward to increased foot traffic. While RDU currently only has three international flights running, it’s hoping to add more with its new air service development program. This program would provide financial incentives for airlines to launch new nonstop international service from RDU. The airport hopes to regain its five international flights by spring of 2022, with more hopefully on the way.
Although, as more Americans take to the skies, giving the tourism industry a much-needed boost, Hawco said one thing that still weighs heavy on the industry’s mind is the ongoing labor shortage.
“We are hiring actively here at the airport authority, but we also have a lot of business partners,” she said. “When you go into the terminals, you’ll see restaurants, you’ll see stores, you might rent a car – all of those business partners are facing the same issues that we have at the authority with the labor shortage. And it’s something that’s really affecting the airport and all of our partners.”
Lead photo via RDU.
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