From travel restrictions to passengers hesitant to fly, these are some of the most common reasons why airline companies are currently experiencing losses. However, the US airlines showed good numbers in the last three weekends of February. For the third straight weekend, passengers surpassed the 1 million passenger mark. Could this be a sign of good things to come?
Growing Confidence in Air Travel
February in general has been forgiving to the already financially troubled US airlines. For starters, weekends had high traveler numbers. For three straight Fridays, US airlines experienced an upward trend.
- February 5th: 868,624 passengers
- February 12th: 1,151,420 passengers
- February 19th: 1,059,452 passengers
- February 26th: 1,096,348 passengers
The 12th was the Friday before President’s Day. This is why it showed the largest number of passengers in February. Aside from the 12th, both 19th and 26th showed numbers that could indicate people’s confidence to hop onboard US airlines and travel again.
Tuesdays hold the worst number for US airlines. At one point, Allegiant Air shut down operations on Tuesday due to the low number of passengers. However, even Tuesdays of February showed great potential.
- February 2nd: 493,338 passengers
- February 9th: 617,619 passengers
- February 16th: 738,825 passengers
- February 23rd: 714,725 passengers
With the exemption of February 2nd, three Tuesdays of the month showed better numbers in comparison to 2020.
Spring Break 2021
US airlines are doing their best to come up with plans to revitalize the industry especially as Spring Break nears. Southwest Airlines had a four-day sale offering $29 one-way in time for Spring Break. Though the fine print says that you can only travel on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, this is still a good deal if you are willing to take the risk. Spirit Airlines also advertised marked down fares for as low as $62 round trip.
However, US airlines are still not optimistic that everything is going to return to pre-pandemic numbers. Spirit Airlines chief commercial officer Matt Klein mentioned that ”sentiment is at the highest level it’s been since we began tracking the data last spring”.
