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The Luxembourg airport in Findel, shown here in an archived photo, will no longer be serviced by Flybe, as the British carrier announced on Thursday it was ceasing activity. Photo Christophe Olinger/Maison Moderne archives 

The future had already looked uncertain earlier this year, given challenges the carrier had faced in recent years, despite the British government agreeing to a “rescue loan” in early 2020 compounded recently by the coronavirus outbreak which has impacted travel worldwide. 

The carrier announced at the same time it would be “unable to arrange alternative flights for passengers” who had been previously booked on one of their flights, but that its partners, Eastern Airways and Blue Islands, were currently operating as usual. 

Air transport hit hard

With businesses restricting travel in light of the coronavirus, and major conferences and events being either cancelled or postponed, Flybe is not the only carrier to be impacted. 

British Airlines has already cancelled some 200 flights, Lufthansa over 7,000, while Ryanair has cancelled flights to Italy. 

As Paperjam reports, Luxair is doing what it can to minimise the impact of the situation, but Luxair admits “the situation is obviously quite complicated. However, for the moment, we provide flights to all our destinations. But there may be occasional cancellations, depending how the situation evolves.”

The International Air Transport Association (announced on Thursday that it estimated air transport financial losses in 2020 could total anywhere between US$63-113b. It added: “Airline share prices have fallen nearly 25% since the outbreak began, some 21 percentage points greater than the decline that occurred at a similar point during the Sars crisis of 2003. To a large extent, this fall already prices in a shock to industry revenues much greater than our previous analysis.”