12 Reasons not to plan a Europe trip 2022!

I feel if you are planning a trip to Europe, better wait till 2023. Below are my reasons.

1 Summer is almost over: August is end of Summer. Winter starts from September. Many tourist places are closed and chances of snow and snow related disruptions begin.

2. Very high flight ticket prices. Return ticket to Europe now costs around 1 lakh in Economy for rest of 2022, for your preferred dates, direct flights and good airlines. You should be extremely lucky to get something for under 50k. If you have lots of flexibility (1 stop flight, flexible with date & destination, ticket without baggage etc) you may get for 60-75k). I have seen 33k Chennai Paris return on Qatar for 2019, have booked a 38k return on Lufthansa/Swiss for 2023. I hope this normalcy returns in 2023 where overall price drops closer to pre-pandemic level once revenge travel ends

3. Airport chaos : Amsterdam, London and many airports in Europe are facing acute shortage of staff and everything from checl in, immigraiton, baggage is taking more time, with 1000s of baggages left unattended. Airports and airlines need to hire staff, train them, get them necessary security clearance and then normalcy may return. Hopefully if things turn normal to 2019 level before X’mas 2022, we can plan for a normal experience in 2023.

4 Massive flight cancellations: Because airports are unable to handle large number of passengers, Lufthansa and many airlines are cancelling 1000s of flights every month. Chances are that one of your flight gets cancelled and your alternate options could be very inconvenient.

5 Visa delays: Earlier it was enough to apply for visa 1 month prior to travel date. These days, better to start the process 3-4 months in advance to be safe. Hopefully the rush ends by yearend and will take less time in 2023

6. Possibly more options once Ukraine war ends

Because of closure of Russian Airspace to European airlines and because of Ukrain war, Indians do not have following options

• Flight to Europe via Helsinki on Finair

• Flight to Europe vis Aerofloat Russian Airlines

• Lufthansa and many airlines looking to bring back A380 into service- this would add more capacity and may bring down per seat price a bit.

These two were pretty cheaper options to fly out via Delhi. If these airlines return to business, we may have more options and it may bring down prices of other airlines as well.

7 Recession: Need to see how the predicted recession pans out. If it gets serious and many people lose jobs, leisure travel will reduce. If ticket sales reduce, airlines will be forced to drop prices

8. Let over tourism end

Right now everyone keen to travel post pandemic, despite 2x the cost, most popular destinations are experiencing over tourism. Too many people will spoil your experiences. Some destinations are inducing extra charge or tax on tourists or other restrictions to control over tourism. Let us see how this pans out and how it impacts tourists, so that we can plan better for 2023 avoiding last minute surprises and costs

9. Understaffed hotels & tourism facilities = poorer experience

Most hotels are understaffed, airlines, airports, tourism attractions are understaffed. This means reduced service level for you. Let us give them six months to sort out the staff shortage and hope for a normal experience in 2023

10. Most of us are not done with domestic exploration yet

Despite exploring nearby places on all possible weekends over 2 years, I am still not done exploring Karnataka properly. Unless I see a compelling offer and convincing proposition, I do not see a compulsion/urgency to travel abroad.