Planes filled up and tickets became very expensive

(CNN Business) – Americans planning to travel summer vacation It is on the verge of discovering that airline tickets are close to or even above pre-pandemic levels, according to the country’s major airlines.

Executives from most of the major airlines said the rebound in domestic leisure travel is here. This means that the returns, which measure how much passengers are paying for each mile traveled, are higher than airlines had expected.

“The [viajes] The citizens of pleasure will be restored to 100% in June, with […] “Bookings that have exceeded 2019 levels and revenues have basically recovered,” said Glenn Hounstein, president of Delta Airlines, at the Wolf Research Conference.

Airlines are cautious about returning more flight offers too quickly, especially since entertainment fares booked long in advance of travel are not as profitable as last-minute business trips booked.

The business trip International travel is not back there yet, although airlines have said they are seeing signs of a future recovery there as well.

United, who is set to speak at the conference later in the day, said in a presentation that total returns on tickets booked this month for travel in May and June are already close to 2019 levels.

This is even with lower demand for business trips, which means that revenues for local entertainment are already outpacing what was booked in 2019.

Cost effectiveness

This does not mean that airlines are profitable again, although many of them said they stopped spending the money as they did for most of 2020 and early 2021.

It’s hard to be profitable with just domestic leisure travelers, said Philip Pagalli, chief analyst at Credit, which covers airlines for Standard & Poor’s. However, restoring this part of your business is still important.

“There has definitely been an increase in the national entertainment reserves and the revenues they were able to generate,” he said. “They don’t fill that many aircraft, but for a large and important part of their business, they are doing a good job.”

Business travel problems

Airlines expect business travel to start coming back as soon as the offices where remote employees work You start to re-open. Of course, there was no point in scheduling business trips if the client whom a business traveler wanted to meet had not yet returned to the office.

“We still expect business trips to return in the fall and beyond,” said Vasu Raja, America’s chief revenue officer. “Many companies are in the early stages of returning to their posts.”

This is why airlines will not have the same number of flights this summer that they have made on Summer 2019, Before the pandemic. But they’re seeing strong demand for the seats they offer, thanks to pent-up demand from holiday travelers.

“at this time […] The only thing preventing us from staying at reserve levels for 2019 is where we are restricting the supply, Raja said.

Bad news for vacationers is good news for airlines and their investors. Shares of US airlines, Delta, United and most other US airlines rose 2% to 3% at midday yesterday.