The travel rebound is shaping as much as be even stronger than airlines expected, helping to make up for rising fuel prices. Southwest Airlines and JetBlue Airways said on Thursday that their revenues within the second quarter were on the right track to be higher than the businesses had projected.
The announcements are the newest sign that folks are increasingly planning leisure and business trips despite a rise in coronavirus cases across the country. Many travelers also seem unbothered by high prices for tickets, hotel rooms and rental cars. Flights booked inside america for this weekend cost a median of $394, a 28 percent increase from the identical weekend in 2019, in keeping with Hopper, a travel booking app.
Southwest said in a securities filing that it expects revenues from April through June to extend between 12 and 15 percent from the identical period in 2019, up from a previous projection of an 8 to 12 percent increase. And while fuel prices are expected to be 5 to 11 percent higher than previously expected, higher revenue will “greater than offset” that rise in costs, the airline said. Based on current trends, Southwest said it “expects solid profits and operating margins” for the second quarter and the remainder of the 12 months.
JetBlue similarly said that business was improving and that it was on the right track to gather record revenue this summer. Ticket bookings are exceeding the airline’s expectations, with revenue for the present quarter expected to be “at or above” the high end of its previous estimate. Revenue per seat per mile flown is predicted to be greater than 20 percent higher than within the second quarter of 2019, the airline said.
United Airlines issued an identical update last week. The corporate said revenue per seat per mile is predicted to be up between 23 and 25 percent within the second quarter compared with the identical period in 2019. United had previously forecast a 17 percent rise.
Last month, United’s chief executive, Scott Kirby, described demand for flights as “the strongest it’s been in my 30 years within the industry.”
In the primary half of May, consumers spent an estimated $4 billion for domestic flights, a 5 percent increase over the second half of April, in keeping with a recent evaluation by the Adobe Digital Economy Index, which tracks online sales from six of the highest 10 U.S. airlines. Bookings were up 2 percent between the last 15 days in April and the primary 15 days in May. Sales and spending were up in May, compared with an identical period in 2019, the evaluation found.
Delta Air Lines said on Thursday that it expected to fly 2.5 million passengers over Memorial Day weekend, a 25 percent increase from the identical weekend last 12 months but still below the two.8 million people flown over the identical weekend in 2019. The corporate also said it could trim flights this summer in an effort to stop flight delays and cancellations that bedeviled airlines last 12 months.
Bad weather, air traffic control disruptions, understaffed vendors and coronavirus quarantines have resulted “in an operation that isn’t consistently as much as the standards Delta has set,” Allison Ausband, the airline’s chief customer experience officer, said in an announcement. Delta plans to chop about 100 every day flights from July through the primary week of August, a 2 percent reduction in its schedule.
