来源：《经济学人》
原文刊登日期：2022年6月9日
The pandemic denied both the pleasures and sufferings of travel. The urge to make up for lost holidays and re-unions with friends and families has brought the airport holiday chaos. A rush to take advantage of school breaks caused recent misery in Europe. Passengers queued for hours at airports from Mallorca to Manchester, and flights were delayed or cancelled. Americans were furious after nearly 3,000 flights were scrapped in the last weekend of May.
这场大流行病剥夺了旅行的乐趣和痛苦。为了弥补失去的假期以及与朋友和家人团聚的强烈愿望，导致了机场假日的混乱。最近，利用学校假期的热潮在欧洲造成了痛苦。从马洛卡到曼彻斯特的乘客在机场排队数小时，航班延误或取消。在5月的最后一个周末，近3000架次航班被取消，这让美国人非常愤怒。
At least the hordes of unsatisfied customers are a sign that air travel is returning to normal. “Pent-up demand for travel is becoming un-pent,” says Andrew Charlton of Aviation Advocacy. The number of seats available on European air lines in the week commencing June 6th was only 9% below the same week in 2019. In North America it was just 5.6% down. Japan, which was in effect shut to tourists for two years, said that it would start to relax restrictions on visitors. The planes are back in the air at close to pre-pandemic levels.
至少，大批不满意的顾客表明航空旅行正在恢复正常。航空倡导组织的安德鲁·查尔顿说：“被压抑的旅行需求正在变得不被压抑。”。从6月6日开始的一周内，欧洲航空公司的可用座位数量仅比2019年同期减少9%，而北美仅下降5.6%。实际上，日本在对游客关闭了两年后，表示将开始放松对游客的限制。飞机已恢复飞行，接近大流行前的水平。
Bookings also look encouraging for the summer. Airlines are having to cope with a new uncertainty—a tendency of travellers to buy tickets later. Even so, up to September sales for international routes are at 72% of their level in 2019 and those on domestic ones are at 66%. Capacity is ascending towards pre-covid levels. Willie Walsh, IATA’s boss, said that the speed of the rebound meant that passenger numbers worldwide would match figures from 2019 by 2023, a year earlier than previously forecast.
今年夏天的预订情况也令人鼓舞。航空公司不得不应对一种新的不确定性——旅客推迟购票的趋势。即便如此，9月的预定额中，国际航线的销售额达到了2019年的72%，国内航线的销售额为66%。运载能力正在上升至疫情之前的水平。国际航空运输协会的老板威利·沃尔什说，反弹的速度意味着到2023年全球乘客数量将与2019年持平，比之前的预测提前了一年。
The pace of the recovery has caught out an industry that has been rebuilding at a steady clip. In particular, traffic has be come much more concentrated in peak periods, according to ACI Europe, a group representing the region’s airports. Passenger numbers are already exceeding pre-pandemic levels in short spells in some places. Airports, in particular, are struggling to cope with these peaks. Replacing workers laid off during the pandemic is tough amid tight labour markets, especially so because of the extra security checks required to hire airport staff. Swissport, the world’s largest airport-service firm, said that it needed to take on 30,000 new workers worldwide by the summer on top of the 45,000 it now employs.
复苏的步伐使一个在迅速重建的行业原形毕露。代表欧洲机场的欧洲机场协会表示，特别是在高峰期，人流变得更加集中。在一些地方，乘客人数已经在短时间内超过了大流行前的水平。尤其是机场，正努力应对这些高峰。在劳动力市场紧张的情况下，替代疫情期间被解雇的员工非常困难，尤其是因为招聘机场工作人员需要进行额外的安全检查。全球最大的机场服务公司瑞士空港(Swissport)表示，在现有4.5万名员工的基础上，到今年夏天，该公司需要在全球范围内招聘3万名新员工。
Staff shortages have already prevented some airlines from adding even more capacity to meet the surging demand. Continuing disruptions may deter passengers, especially if the novelty of taking a holiday in a far-away place wears off. Even if airlines and airports are able to recruit staff to make the summer months less painful, other problems remain.
员工短缺已经让一些航空公司无法增加运力来满足激增的需求。持续的交通中断可能会让乘客望而却步，尤其是如果去远方度假的新鲜感逐渐消失的话。即使航空公司和机场能够招募员工来减轻夏季的痛苦，其他问题仍然存在。
Foremost is a sky-high oil price. Mr Walsh said recently that surging fuel costs had added 10% to fares already. Michael O’Leary, the boss of Ryanair, Europe’s biggest carrier, admits only to “cautious grounds for optimism”. A white-hot summer could be followed by a difficult winter.
最重要的是高油价。沃尔什先生最近表示，飙升的燃油成本已经使机票价格上涨了10%。欧洲最大的航空公司瑞安航空(Ryanair)的老板迈克尔•奥利里只承认“持谨慎的乐观态度”。白热化的夏天之后可能是艰难的冬天。