The Transportation Security Administration recorded almost 1.35 million air travelers on Tuesday. This is the fewest air travelers recorded in a day since May 11. Travel demand usually goes down after summer with children returning to school. Airline executives from Frontier, Southwest, Spirit, and American already warned that fewer air travelers also mean that they’d miss their profit forecast.
However, seeing the fewest air travelers since May 11 isn’t just a seasonal trend. Airlines executives are already blaming the weak numbers on the recent surge of COVID19 cases.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Dr. Rochelle Walensky advised on Tuesday that unvaccinated people shouldn’t be traveling during the Labor Day weekend.
The US recorded 4.22 million new COVID cases in August. On top of that, 26,805 Americans died of COVID19 in August alone. That’s three times the number of casualties in July. Moreover, the last week of August was worse than the entire month of July in terms of COVID-related deaths.
Among the most affected states include Alabama, Florida, Hawaii, Mississippi, Oregon, Louisiana, and Washington. Some of these affected states have low vaccination rates. Hawaii’s governor even announced that it’s not the best time to visit. Hawaii’s cases grew by 232% compared to its previous worst month.
As the demand for air travel dropped, domestic airfares also fell in the last week of August. The average one-way domestic fare dropped by as much as 30.6%. The average airfare was $51 for Spirit and $183 for JetBlue.
Even if projections are low, United Airlines stays positive announcing on Wednesday that it expects to carry 2 million passengers from September 2 to September 7. That’s still three times more than last year’s number of travelers. Even if it’s an impressive number by today’s standards, it’s still lower than the 2.6 million travelers that the airline carried during the Labor Day weekend that year.
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