While the Delta variant of COVID-19 continues to spread throughout the United States. In recent days, a sense of apprehensiveness from investors about the Delta variant has developed on the US stock market. While investors may remain sceptical about the impact the variant could have on large corporations and the US economy, consumer demand for air travel continues at a steady pace.
Some airline senior executives, such as United Airlines CEO, Scott Kirby have noted that there hasn’t been any real slowdown when it comes to consumers purchasing airline tickets. The Chief Executive added, “We haven’t seen any impact at all on bookings, which continue to just get stronger and stronger every week.”
The Chief Executive believes that this is mainly due to the fact that a rather large majority of frequent flyers and loyal customers are now fully vaccinated. United recently reported that over 80% of its frequent-flyer program members are vaccinated.
The Chief Executive of Delta Air Lines, Ed Bastian also reiterated something similar with the Delta variant having a minimal effect on travel bookings last week. However, the CEO added that the Delta variant was causing further delays to the opening of the borders to many international destinations.
This summer travel season is almost completely different to last years summer season with the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) reporting upwards of 2 million people passing through airport security screening per day.
During the early stages of the pandemic, airlines had found that negative news headlines about COVID-19 or news segments that contained fearful information about the virus, would prompt large numbers of people to cancel trips.
For much of 2020, that was the recurring theme, with cancellations outpacing ticket purchases. However, it now seems that Americans are becoming desensitized to the pandemic, this could also be doing to the fact that vaccinations are perhaps giving people in the United States a greater sense of security when it comes to travel this summer.
Even with all of the news about the Delta variant spreading across the country, US carriers like United have stated that its cancellation rate has remained stagnant, however, it still remains higher than pre-pandemic levels. Again, this may be due to the fact that the number of passengers and air travellers that are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 continues to rise on a weekly basis.
Presently, airline officials are lobbying the United States’ congressional and administrative officials to lift the restrictions that have prevented most Europeans from entering the United States. The current travel restrictions to international travel remain the same as they did back in March 2020.
US carriers are arguing the case that many European countries have eased border restrictions, which has led to a large increase in international bookings to a number of destinations across the Atlantic, however the same has yet to be reciprocated by the United States.
Meanwhile, the White House Press Secretary, Jen Psaki said earlier this week that discussions with foreign countries are “continuing.” However, she saw no contradiction in European countries welcoming US citizens while the United States continues to prevent most non-US citizens from entering the country from Europe.
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