How Russia's War on Ukraine Changed Travel One Year Later

25.08.2023 - 14:03 / skift.com / Rashaad Jorden

Friday marks the one-year anniversary of the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a cataclysmic act that has significantly impacted travel worldwide. In just 12 months, 19 million refugees have crossed the border out of Ukraine, 7,200 innocent civilians have been killed, including 438 children, and countless lives are still being put at risk day and night by a war that shows no signs of ending.

That is how all of us try to put the tragedy into perspective. Still, our job is to report on the travel industry and how this war has upended business. 

Major travel brands in all sectors of the industry have been disrupted. Skift has thoroughly covered the impact of the war on the travel industry, including changes travel brands have had to make in response to the invasion as well as how it has impeded travel’s ongoing recovery from the pandemic. Here is a look at major changes in travel brought about by the war.

The airline industry was perhaps the first sector of travel to feel immediate effects of the war. Still largely yet to make a complete recovery from the pandemic, airlines had to quickly encounter surging fuel prices. Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary predicted the 12 months after the invasion would be difficult for most airlines in large part because of the jump in oil prices. Some carriers either introduced or raised fuel surcharges, which airlines typically pass onto customers in the form of higher airfares.

Russian travelers spent $36 billion on international travel and took more than 40 million overseas trips in 2019, making the country one of the world’s largest outbound markets. The Russian travel industry had initially been one of the strongest performers according to the according to the Travel Health Index launched by Skift Research, which measures the performance of the global travel industry compared to pre-pandemic levels.  

But moves by U.S., Canada, and nations across Europe to close their airspace to Russian planes have pummeled Russia’s travel performance as calculated by Skift Research. Russia’s score in the Skift Travel Health Index, which reveals the extent of its recovery from the pandemic, decreased roughly 28 points from February 2022 to the following month. The country’s December 2022 performance trailed its score from the same month in 2020.

Many major Western travel companies announced shortly after Russia invading Ukraine that they were pulling business out of Russia. Travel industry heavyweights like Airbnb, Booking Holdings and Marriott were among the corporations to announce they were pulling operations out of Russia. In addition, several tour operators committed to cancelling trips to Russia for the rest of 2022.

However, some prominent global brands are still doing