People move through Newark Liberty International Airport following a news conference by Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy on the airport, where he announced the reopening of a significant runway on the airport, nearly two weeks ahead of schedule on June 2, 2025 in Newark, Latest Jersey.
Spencer Platt | Getty Images
Thousands and thousands of travelers are expected to fly over the July 4 holiday period, however the outlook for the remaining of the yr still looks murky as airlines wrestle with too many flights and never enough demand.
“The summer is on sale, which actually implies lower fares,” Southwest Airlines CEO Bob Jordan said in an interview late last month.
Domestic airfare this summer is averaging $265 for a round-trip flight, down 3% over last yr and the most affordable since 2021, in line with fare-tracker Hopper. Airfare within the May U.S. inflation report was down greater than 7% from a yr ago.
Southwest and a number of other airlines — Delta Air Lines, American Airlines and Alaska Airlines — pulled their forecasts for 2025 earlier this yr, blaming an uncertain economic backdrop with the Trump administration’s on-again-off-again tariffs and a number of other latest challenges, like fewer overseas visitors to america.
Things may not be much clearer now as Delta kicks off airline earnings next Thursday, with other carriers set to report later this month.
“We’re stable where we’re, but we’ve got not seen an inflection back,” Jordan said.
In response, airlines have outlined plans to chop unprofitable flights, particularly on off-peak days after the main summer travel season. Airlines make the majority of their profits within the second and third quarters of the yr.
From last Tuesday through next Monday, the Transportation Security Administration said it expects to screen greater than 18.5 million travelers at U.S. airports, though no single day is anticipated to top the nearly 3.1 million travelers that went through checkpoints on June 22, an agency record.
While a pointy economic downturn hasn’t materialized, air travel demand hasn’t been as strong as some industry members expected last yr or in early 2025. On Thursday, U.S. jobs data got here in stronger than expected despite some signs of a slowdown within the labor market a day earlier.
“While the broader macro environment has been more resilient than feared, overall airline industry demand has been tepid,” TD Cowen analyst Tom Fitzgerald said in a Wednesday note.
Debit and bank card spending tracked by Bank of America showed an 11.8% decline on air travel spending last month from a yr earlier in June, after five months of year-on-year declines.
“Debit and bank card data for spend on airlines has been down barely more in June than April/May, so we usually are not expecting a meaningful sequential improvement in revenue trends,” Bank of America analyst Andrew Didora said in a Tuesday note. “We imagine investors can be on the lookout for commentary on any green shoots in demand, and any further commentary on 2H25 capability cuts could possibly be viewed positively.”
International trips originating from the U.S. have been a robust corner of air travel and a boon for large global carriers like Delta, American and United Airlines.
But fares have eased for trips abroad, too. International flights from U.S. airports are up 4.3% from last summer, in line with Hopper. Fares from the U.S. to Europe are averaging $817, down almost $100 from last yr, and on par with 2019, Hopper said. Flights to Asia were going for $1,328 on average in June, July or August, down 13% from last yr, Hopper data show.
