Americans are already booking Christmas and Thanksgiving travel while summer holidays may suffer as fares surge
- March 2021 saw Americans book Christmas and Thanksgiving travel in greater numbers than March 2019.
- Adobe found that cheap airfare in March prompted Americans to book earlier than normal.
- A Cirium study found that Fourth of July and Labor Day travel didn't fare as well.
The winter holidays never fail to get Americans in the sky, even during a pandemic.
Air travel numbers have been steadily increasing in the US, according to Transportation Security Administration data, as more Americans get vaccinated, and some are already planning end-of-year holiday trips around Christmas and Thanksgiving.
Adobe is reporting that Americans booked more holiday travel in March 2020 than they did in pre-pandemic March 2019. "Christmas flight bookings are up 17% and Thanksgiving flight bookings are up 9% compared to March 2019 levels," Adobe's Digital Economy Index report found.
Adobe attributes the trend to cheaper than normal airfares in March and noted that booking jumped 57 percent from February, and 79 percent from January. March saw the vaccine rollout accelerated to include more Americans and is when the third round of stimulus checks arrived in many Americans' bank accounts.
The faith in vaccines to end the pandemic already appears to be paying off as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced in April that vaccinated individuals could safely fly domestically, as Insider's Brittany Chang reported, followed by the loosening of mask guidelines in May.
Americans have shown a willingness to gamble with pandemic travel restrictions if the price is right and the trip is far enough in advance. A sale on flights to Tokyo, Japan - a destination currently closed to American tourists- enticed travelers to take a gamble that the trendy destination would open to tourists in less than a year's time.
The combination of cheap airfares and a normally cost-prohibitive travel season was likely enticement enough for many. Last year also saw spikes in passenger numbers around both holidays when airfares were lower than normal, despite the likelihood of a second wave and against the advice of public health officials.
Airfares are rising, however, and the window to save on winter holiday travel may be over. New data from Hopper shows that domestic airfares are up 12 percent from April and will continue to rise by four percent by the end of May.
Hotel prices are also surging, Hopper found, and rates are up 11 percent since March. Rental cars, however, have seen the largest increase in demand, totaling 495% since January.
Summer holidays may see a weaker turnout
Cirium, an aviation data company, asked 2,140 Americans over the age of 18 about their travel plans for the summer and found Labor Day and the Fourth of July might not see as many travelers as the winter holidays, in a report shared with Insider. Less than 20 percent of respondents said they would fly for the two summer holidays.
Only 16 percent of respondents said they'd fly for the Fourth of July and 17 percent said they'd fly for the Fourth of July. The study was conducted between April 29 and May 6, when airfares were higher than they were from January to March and could have hindered travel plans.
Only 40% of those who said they plan to fly in the future said they will do this summer. Their reasoning for travel, Cirium found, was largely to visit friends and relatives.
The business travel outlook for the summer still looks grim due to "no travel" policies by employers, according to Cirium. But 33% of respondents expect to be traveling again within six months.
One bright spot for airlines, however, is that 90 percent of Cirium's respondents said they intend to fly again "at some point in the future."