COVID-19 changing Aussies’ trip plans

With international travel off limits, and domestic flying out of favour, Aussies plan to hit the road.

Australians are planning to fly less domestically, a new JPMorgan survey reports. Picture: Getty Images

Auto and fuel retailers are set to benefit from changing Australian travel preferences, with a JPMorgan survey revealing that nearly half of all Australians plan to fly less domestically and 68 per cent will not fly internationally before a coronavirus vaccine is available.

The survey asked more than 500 respondents this month if they expected to fly domestically more often, less often or about the same amount once coronavirus restrictions in Australia were fully lifted, with 44 per cent saying they anticipated they would fly “less than before”.

Just under half of the respondents who said they would fly less did not anticipate a return to the skies until next year or later.

The age demographic likeliest to steer clear from domestic flights were those between 18 and 29, with those over 60 likelier to state they would fly “about the same amount” as before.

But Australians were not ruling out holidaying entirely, with 42 per cent of respondents saying they would drive to a location for their next holiday.

Almost half of respondents anticipated they would be flying overseas less often, although most of the roughly 12 per cent of respondents who anticipated travelling more often were men aged between 18 and 44.

Most of the 68 per cent of people who will not fly internationally before a vaccine is available also do not plan to fly domestically before next year, but the 32 per cent who would fly overseas without a vaccine anti­ci­pate they will return to domes­tic flights by the end of this year.

JPMorgan’s head of research, Jason Steed, said the aversion of some Australians to flying would weigh on aviation-related equities while benefiting those relating to car travel and maintenance.

“A driving holiday or staying at home were preferred to flying domestically or internationally for the next vacation,” Mr Steed said. “We see these results as negative for air travel and supportive of our ‘underweight’ rating on Sydney Airport, and a positive for driving holidays, which is supportive of our ‘overweights’ on Ampol, Super Retail Group and Viva Energy Group.”

The survey also examined sentiments on topics relating to working from home, food retail and home improvement, finding that some habits adopted during the coronavirus lockdown are set to become permanent.

Mr Steed said the adoption of home grocery delivery would increase from 17 per cent to 20 per cent as a result of habits adopted during the lockdown, placing an overweight recommendation on Coles as a result.

Nearly half of respondents said they expected to work from home at least one day a week post-COVID, with 45 per cent saying they expected to spend more on technology and 33 per cent saying they expected to spend more on gardening and hardware.

“Despite investor concerns that recent areas of retail strength, specifically technology and gardening/hardware spend, while WFH (working from home) will not continue, respondents intend to spend more on technology and gardening/hardware, suggesting these areas of strength could support sales for Officeworks and Bunnings, JB Hi-Fi and Harvey Norman,” Mr Steed said.