Attempting to make a terrible situation sound better, although passenger traffic is down 60 percent, last week, the Transportation Safety Administration reported more people are traveling this month than at any time since March.
American and Southwest Airlines reports reservations are moving up for the Thanksgiving and December holiday seasons, leading Southwest to resume selling tickets for middle seats on 1 December, a COVID Fear practice it suspended in March.
Trying to sell security to a fearful public, Gary Kelly, its CEO, told the Wall Street Journal that recent studies have shown that planes’ air filtration and circulation methods reduce the risk of catching the virus on a flight.
While Southwest expects its fourth-quarter schedule to be reduced 40 percent compared to 2019’s, American Airlines said it will keep capacity for the period below half of last year’s.
Lousy Numbers
American Airlines Group lost $2.4 billion in the third quarter, Delta $5.4 billion. Southwest gave up $1.2 billion and United’s loss was $1.8 billion.
However, airlines’ stock prices rose on 22 October on news that federal stimulus negotiations were progressing, lifting hope that carriers would be among the beneficiaries of a new round of federal largesse.
American’s shares gained more than 3.3 percent; Southwest’s rose 5.8 percent on the day.
TREND FORECAST: Again, as we have stated, the airline industry will not come back until there is a vaccine and a COVID Fear driven society feels safe to be around strangers.
Despite a passenger bounce-back, as the “Greatest Depression” worsens, we forecast that business travel and tourism will not return to 2019 levels for years to come.
