Air travel starting to regain altitude
Improved spring, summer bookings reveal recovery
Across the United States, air travel is recovering more quickly from the depths of the pandemic, and it is showing up in longer airport security lines and busier traffic on airline websites.
U.S. airlines rallied as improved summer leisure bookings offered solid signs of a recovery — a year after Americans began staying close to home because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The Transportation Security Administration screened more than 1.3 million people both Friday and Sunday, setting a new high since the coronavirus outbreak devastated travel a year ago. Airlines believe the numbers are heading up, with more people booking flights for spring and summer.
“Our last three weeks have been the best three weeks since the pandemic hit, and each week has been better than the one prior,” American Airlines CEO Doug Parker said Monday.
JetBlue Airways and Southwest Airlines see first-quarter revenue declining less than they originally expected, the carriers said Monday in advance of a JPMorgan Chase & Co. conference. Delta Air Lines said daily cash sales have improved 30 percent this month from February.
“We’ve seen some glimmers of hope over the course of the last year, but this seems like it’s real,” Delta Chief Executive Officer Ed Bastian said at the conference. “It seems substantive. Although we have a long ways to go yet, we are in a much better place than we have been in a good period of time.”
The projections appeared to be early signs of the surge in demand that U.S. carriers have been forecasting as COVID-19 case growth slowed and more U.S. residents get vaccinated. Demand continues to focus on beach and mountain destinations where travelers have sought to escape pressures of the pandemic.
Travelers and the airlines still have far to go before again hitting the heights they saw in 2019.
While the number of people passing through airport checkpoints on Sunday finally eclipsed the number on the same day last year — a first for the pandemic era — it was still down 45.5 percent from the same day in 2019.
Parker said American’s bookings are now running just 20 percent below 2019 levels. A factor appears to be traveler confidence now that more people are getting vaccinated against COVID-19. About 70 million Americans, or 21 percent, have received at least one dose, and 37 million have completed their vaccination, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Consumers are purchasing tickets for spring break until autumn, Delta said in filing. That marks a hopeful change from earlier in the pandemic, when they booked travel only shortly in advance because of the uncertain outlook. While sales are picking up, Delta projected that first-quarter revenue will be at the low end of its previous outlook of down 60 percent to 65 percent from 2019.
Corporate demand “is still slowly but steadily building back” and should increase as workers return to offices, Delta President Glen Hauenstein said at the conference.
JetBlue said in a regulatory filing that first-quarter revenue would decline as much as 64 percent from the same period in 2019, the year before the virus upended travel across the world. The carrier previously projected that the figure could be down as much as 70 percent from two years ago.
Though “trends remain choppy,” bookings have improved for vacation travelers and people visiting friends and family, the New York-based carrier said.
Southwest, meanwhile, said demand and fares are rising. The Dallas-based airline projected that revenue would fall as much as 60 percent in March, compared with an earlier outlook for a decline that could reach 65 percent.
Southwest Airlines CEO Gary Kelly said during a Washington Post webcast that his airline could break even by June, “where you have had much of the population vaccinated.”
Southwest said in a regulatory filing that for March and April will be better than expected as passenger traffic and fares rise. The airline said people are booking leisure trips to beach and mountain destinations but business travel is still lagging.
United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby said his airline will generate “core” cash instead of burning cash for March, and he expects the positive trend to continue in the months ahead.
Airline stocks rose in afternoon trading. United Airlines was 9 percent, American gained 7 percent, Delta rose 3 percent, and Southwest added 1 percent. A Standard & Poor’s index of the nine biggest U.S. carriers had advanced 32 percent this year through March 12.