Looming trade tariffs have yet to hit demand for flights, Walsh says

LONDON (Reuters) - The head of global airlines body IATA said threatened U.S. trade tariffs were unlikely to halt a post-COVID surge in travel demand, and that President Donald Trump's approach could ultimately be positive for the industry.

"It's additional uncertainty which we never welcome but we've always been able to manage," IATA's Willie Walsh said in an interview, as the prospect of more U.S. tariffs looms.

He said the Trump administration's approach to date was a "net positive" for the airlines sector and was likely to encourage consolidation.

Describing Trump's approach as a "wake-up call", he urged European regulators to relax regulation.

"I think it is important that Europe re-evaluates its role in the world, and I think the Trump administration has caused that to happen much more quickly than I had expected," he said.

Walsh said transatlantic travel was up in January and February year-on-year and that travel demand across the industry was up 9% since before the pandemic in 2019.

"We'll look at March and April as we get the figures there. But certainly in the figures that we have available to us, it's not obvious that there's been an impact," he said.

Individual airlines have given a mixed picture.

Virgin Atlantic said on Monday that travel from the United States to Britain had slowed, echoing comments from its part owner Delta of the impact of U.S. economic uncertainty on demand.

Germany airline Lufthansa, however, said on Tuesday, it had not seen a fall in bookings for transatlantic travel.

(Reporting by Joanna Plucinska and Tim Hepher; editing by Barbara Lewis)