Influence of Covid-19 on airline passengers’ travel motivation in Europe: a literature review

The Covid-19 pandemic has caught the world by surprise when it started to spread across the globe in the spring of 2020. A health crisis of this magnitude had far-reaching consequences. Within weeks, various industries around the world were severely affected by the spread of the disease. One of the most prominent industries, which was affected since the very beginning of the pandemic in March 2020, was the aviation industry. In Europe, flight numbers were down to levels last seen immediately after World War II, which makes the Covid-19 pandemic the worst crisis in aviation history. The main objective of this research was to assess the influence of the Covid-19 pandemic on the travel motivation of airline passengers in Europe. As the pandemic constituted a previously unknown health hazard to Europeans, it was decided to research its degree of impact on the travel decision making process. This research intended to establish, how much it differs from other hazards, and how it influences the motivation to travel. Due to the prevailing circumstances at the time the research was conducted, it was decided to implement a qualitative research approach, and to base the research entirely on academic literature. In order to ensure reliable results, a literature review was chosen as the most suitable methodology. By conducting a thorough literature review, the researcher established the current state of knowledge on the topic. Furthermore, by careful synthesis of the data, he was also able to generate reliable results. The results confirmed that the pandemic has had a substantial influence on the travel motivation of European airline passengers. Various factors affecting travel motivation were identified from the data. These factors were then divided into external and internal factors. External factors consisted of outside influences like health safety measures or economic impact, whereas internal factors consisted of perceived risk, safety concerns, and travel desire. Both the external and internal factors were found to be very significant for determining travel motivation. Covid-19 was a new phenomenon at the start of this research, which represented a limitation as academic literature was limited at the time. Based on the results of the research, the author recommends further inquiry into health safety hazards and their influence on air travel