Implications of Omicron for travel

How long will Omicron-related travel restrictions last?

We’ve already seen the initial set of travel restrictions put in place by governments, responding to the new Omicron variant. Perhaps they will get more restrictive still in the next few days and weeks. But in some ways the bigger question now for airline planners and for travellers pondering whether to book their summer holidays is how long these restrictions will last.

To a certain extent, we know how this goes, based on how Delta impacted the industry after it emerged in India in early April. Initially, countries responded by trying to contain the new variant to the countries where it had been detected, through targeted flight bans and travel restrictions. Some countries moved faster to close their borders more comprehensively, conscious that by the time a new variant makes it onto the “variant of concern” list, it is likely to have already spread undetected across the world. Finally, once the new variant had become the dominant strain in their own country, travel restrictions were relaxed, recognising the fact that community spread by that point dwarfed the contribution from travel.

It is still early days for Omicron, and it is is possible that it might still turn out to be a less worrying variant than feared. However, it is looking increasingly likely that Omicron has enough of an advantage over Delta that it will eventually take over as the dominant strain, and that governments will be keen to slow down its arrival in their countries. The initial responses by governments have closely followed the pattern we saw with Delta.

The WHO has criticised the restrictions, saying “Blanket travel bans will not prevent the international spread, and they place a heavy burden on lives and livelihoods.” But politicians don’t seem to be listening. Many countries were already grappling with big infection waves caused by Delta and an even more infectious strain is the last thing they need. They will be determined to be seen to have done everything in their power to slow down the spread of Omicron and travel bans are highly visible signals, whatever their expert advisors are telling them about the limited effectiveness.

The most disruptive period for travel is therefore likely to be the phase where Omicron is present in some countries but not yet established in others. How long is this phase likely to last? Let’s look at the evidence from the spread of Delta.

Delta case study

It took a bit of time for Delta to spread across the world. I’ve shown a few representative countries in the chart below. The UK was one of the first to be hit after India, given the strong cultural and travel links between the countries. The UK quickly put India on its “red list” (perhaps taking a few days longer than it might have), but 5 weeks later, penetration of the Delta variant had hit 50% of UK cases. There was a further 6-week lag before that milestone was reached in neighbouring France, with the US and other European countries being hit about the same time.

It took longer to arrive in places with fewer travel links and/or more travel restrictions. Japan had its borders closed to foreign visitors for the whole period and managed to buy itself an extra 2.5 weeks. Brazil was one of the last to fall to Delta. Due to the presence of its own home-grown variant Gamma, it spent most of 2021 cut off from the rest of the world due to travel restrictions imposed on it by other countries. Ironically, that probably delayed the arrival of Delta into the country.

Overall, It took just under 6 months for Delta to achieve “world domination”, going from 10% of cases in India to 90% in Brazil.

Source: GISAID, GridPoint analysis

How quickly will Omicron spread?

You can see from the previous chart that it generally took Delta between 6 and 8 weeks to get from 10% to 90% of cases in a country. The evidence we have from South Africa is that Omicron is likely to do that much more quickly.

The chart below aligns the penetration curves for the three variant waves that have hit South Africa, with “week 0” being the week in which each variant exceeded 40% of cases. Delta took about 8 weeks to go from 10% to 90%, quite similar to the time it took it predecessor Beta to become dominant. It looks like Omicron has done that in just 3 weeks. Preliminary data from the UK seems to show the same picture of a variant that has a much bigger advantage over the previous dominant strain than we’ve seen before.

Source: GISAID, GridPoint analysis

Implications for the duration of travel restrictions and demand recovery

If Omicron spreads twice as fast as Delta did, countries which get hit early on might start lifting restrictions within 3-4 weeks. However, travellers from those countries may still find themselves blocked from travelling, due to restrictions in countries which are still trying to keep Omicron out.

Only when the variant has become dominant everywhere will we be back to where we were before Omicron appeared, with most travel restrictions lifted. If the spread between countries is also twice as fast as Delta, reaching that point could take as little as three months. The clock started in early November, so that could be as early as the end of January.

If countries manage to slow the spread through more draconian restrictions, perhaps that will extend the period by another month or two. But it seems likely to me that travel restrictions will have become largely pointless by February or March next year.

If that timing proves to be correct, another miserable three or four months lie ahead for the industry. But perhaps hopes for a fairly full recovery by Summer 2022 could remain on track.

Unless of course, Pi, Rho or Sigma has turned up before then to dash industry recovery hopes once again.