After a year of bleeding cash with drastically-reduced passenger volume and flights, U.S. airlines are starting to see a future in which they make money again, although it’s based on a possibly too-hasty return of passengers.
While CDC recommendations still argue against non-essential travel, customers are knocking on the airlines’ doors, looking for tickets to leisure destinations, especially those with warmer weather, such as Florida.
Whether the surge in flying will lead to a surge in inflections is not clear, with a growing number of vaccinated passengers, but for the moment the cash is flowing, and United said in an SEC filing that it expects positive cash flow this month. Ed Bastian, Delta CEO, told analysts he is ‘cautiously optimistic’ that his airline can see the same soon. At the same conference, Doug Parker of American described rapidly increasing demand.
Most of the growth is in leisure travel; business travel is not picking up at the same pace, and the three legacy airlines, as well as their competitors, have all diverted capacity from heavily-business routes to leisure destinations and freight.
