Is Spring Break a Bust for Airlines?
Photo Credit: Tourists at a Philipsburg, St. Maarten beach taking photos of an incoming Delta flight. Skift/Flickr / Günter Hentschel
Skift Take
Travel is relative to people's needs and right now leisure is king — especially for cooped-up college kids. If airlines want to cash in on pent-up demands, servicing underserved locations offering a combination of nature outings and social distancing is key to increasing revenue output during the pandemic.
Almost two weeks into the launch of spring break, how is traffic on planes looking? Is this a revenue win for the airlines or is the much anticipated spring break recovery a bust for airlines?
The answers really depend on the airline. The landscape looks vastly different for the major airlines, than that of the low-cost carriers.
Legacy airlines represented by industry trade group Airlines for America (A4A) said as of March 15 are carrying 53 percent fewer passengers than pre-pandemic and have 73 percent fewer bookings than the same period in 2019, a Covid-19 slide deck published by A4A shows.
"U.S. passenger airlines are currently burning an estimated $150 million of cash per day," said Katherine Estep, an A4A spokesperson.
On the other hand, low-cost airlines seem to be faring better with the leisure travel sector traditionally traveling during spring break.
Thanks in part to a January sales blitz for travel in March and April and the launching of a d
