With business travelers still off the road and leisure travelers beginning to return to the skies, U.S. airlines are abandoning the traditional hub-and-spoke routing system that served road warriors so well and launching more nonstop flights to fun-seekers’ most popular destinations.
“Given the lack of business demand, we’re focusing on leisure travel and providing more service for customers traveling to visit family and friends,” Brian Znotins, American Airlines’ vice president of network planning, told Bloomberg.
For example, winter travelers leaving cities such as Boston, Cleveland, or Indianapolis in search of the sun no longer need to connect through Chicago or Atlanta; they now have direct flights to winter havens such as Fort Lauderdale, Orlando, and Tampa.
In the past, carriers offered only a few flights a week from the U.S. northeast to Baja California; now American, Delta, and United each are flying direct several times a week.
Hawaii and Caribbean destinations also are seeing more flights.
“Everything we do stems from demand,” Ankit Gupta, United’s vice-president for domestic network planning, said to Bloomberg.
Seeking to accommodate travelers wishing to visit relatives or their countries of origin, airlines also are arranging more direct flights to Bangalore, Ghana, and Tel Aviv.
Fares fell during the pandemic and remain as much as one-third below pre-pandemic prices. However, as more people are vaccinated and the economy recovers, the number of travelers will rise and so will fares, experts say.
“There’s an opportunity for travelers right now,” Scott Keyes of the search website Scott’s Cheap Flights, commented to Bloomberg. Fee waivers and eased cancellation policies are still in place, he notes. “Once more people are vaccinated and willing to travel, the deals are likely to dry up,” he said.
TREND FORECAST: We maintain our forecast that, at best, the travel industry will not begin to strongly rebound until 2024.
On the business travel end, with the world having instantly embraced video conferencing/Zoom and with businesses cutting back expenses, the business travel model will not fully bounce back. Not only will the airline industry, which profits highly from business travel, suffer financially, so, too, will hospitality and all related sectors.
