Where Americans Are Going

Travel restrictions tied to the coronavirus crisis have cut off many of the most-visited foreign destinations for US business and leisure travellers, with international flights now accounting for less than 9% of airline capacity, according to OAG.

Americans seeking a getaway have stayed close to home, led by Mexico — the only top-five country to raise its ranking from before the pandemic — and other spots in Latin America or the Caribbean, based on commerce department data collected by lobby group Airlines for America. Major countries such as Canada, the UK, Japan and Germany have seen a visitor drop of 90% or more from the US. The UK’s Virgin Atlantic Airways, which specialises in transatlantic flights, said on Wednesday it doesn’t expect to be back at full capacity until October or November.

The plunge in traffic over the Atlantic and the Pacific reflects in part the demise of corporate travel. Tickets sold for business trips are down 78% from 2019 levels, compared with the 47% average drop for all segments, according to travel data firm Airlines Reporting Corp.

By contrast, ski trips during spring break helped bring smaller markets in the mountain states of Montana and Wyoming back to within 20% of pre-pandemic levels. Airport passenger counts in California dropped 63% for the month of March, while New York and New Jersey were down 66% and 53%, respectively. During normal times, John F Kennedy International, Newark Liberty and Los Angeles International are among the busiest US airports for overseas travel.

Traffic in states with big domestic hubs — such as Texas, Florida, Illinois and Georgia — fell somewhere in the middle of the spectrum. These days, instead of ferrying high-dollar business flyers to London or Tokyo, US airlines are left to focus on how to entice more budget-conscious leisure travellers.

To energise its international business, United is trying to tap Americans’ pent-up wanderlust with new seasonal flights to Iceland, Greece and Croatia. American, which is cutting back flights to South America amid the worsening pandemic in Brazil, is bolstering the domestic schedule — for example, with service to Orlando, Florida, from eight US cities this summer.

“If you’re a US airline, you’ve been able to recover some of that lost international demand by people being attracted to go to the southern states, to points like Florida, or Arizona or if they could do California,” OAG’s Grant said. While there are positive signs, “it still requires access to major international markets to solidify the recovery we’ve seen today”.

Bloomberg News.