cheryl
Administrator
Staff member
Air travel's hopeful revival is starting to stall - Chron
Return of flights, tourists to NYC, Hawaii, Hong Kong come into question
In the past month or two, we’ve seen lots of optimism from the airlines about a healthy recovery from the industry’s worst downturn in history – grounded aircraft being brought back, suspended routes reopening, travel writers taking their first mid-pandemic trips – but now it appears that optimism may have been premature as the air travel outlook is starting to turn south again.
Early last week, United Airlines announced ambitious plans to add hundreds more flights to its August schedule, but now it is scaling back those plans slightly, as its expectation of a continued increase in passenger demand is no longer showing up in advance bookings.
Why not? Because a new surge of coronavirus cases around the country in the past two weeks or so, combined with new mandatory quarantines imposed by some U.S. destinations, is making many potential travelers think twice about taking a late summer vacation or business flight. United now expects its overall capacity to remain at August levels – down 65% from the same month last year – for the rest of the year.
Return of flights, tourists to NYC, Hawaii, Hong Kong come into question
In the past month or two, we’ve seen lots of optimism from the airlines about a healthy recovery from the industry’s worst downturn in history – grounded aircraft being brought back, suspended routes reopening, travel writers taking their first mid-pandemic trips – but now it appears that optimism may have been premature as the air travel outlook is starting to turn south again.
Early last week, United Airlines announced ambitious plans to add hundreds more flights to its August schedule, but now it is scaling back those plans slightly, as its expectation of a continued increase in passenger demand is no longer showing up in advance bookings.
Why not? Because a new surge of coronavirus cases around the country in the past two weeks or so, combined with new mandatory quarantines imposed by some U.S. destinations, is making many potential travelers think twice about taking a late summer vacation or business flight. United now expects its overall capacity to remain at August levels – down 65% from the same month last year – for the rest of the year.