Summer trips are not as easy for airlines as before
A passenger deals with airplanes at the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in Atlanta, Georgia, on July 2, 2025.
Charly Triballeau | AFP | Getty pictures
Earning money in summer is not as easy for airlines.
The airlines made their schedules for various reasons in August. Some travelers choose to fly earlier, in June or even in May, since the schools previously left out than before. The demand for flights to Europe has also moved from the humid, overcrowded summer to autumn, according to the leaders of the airlines, especially for travelers with more flexibility such as retirees.
The airlines still earn most of their money in the second and third quarter. But when travel issue has shifted and in some cases the customers have become unpredictable, which makes the third quarter less for airlines.
Change of plans, more expensive tickets
Flight planners were forced to become more surgical in August, as the leisure demand is rejuvenated by late spring and summer summit. After the pandemic, workers and other costs have dropped so that the mixture of flights is correct.
The airlines in the industry have taken flights from the schedule after an overhang with too much capacity has reduced tariffs this summer. However, the capacity cuts should continue to increase the flight prices that rose 0.7% in July in July and, according to the last US inflation, a seasonally adjusted jump from 4% from June to July.
The domestic capacity of the US airlines fell by 6% in August, according to the aviation data company Cirium. In the same period of the previous year, they lowered the domestic capacity of a little more than 4% compared to only a reduction of 0.6% between the months in 2023, said Cirium. From July to August 2019, airlines lowered 1.7% of the capacity.
The airlines that bet on a blockbuster year remained disappointed in 2025 when Donald Trump's on-again tariffs and economic uncertainty had used. In order to attract more customers, many airlines shortened prices, even for flights to the summer peaks at the end of June and July.
The demand has improved, the Airline executives have shared with winning shots in recent months, but carriers including the airlines deltaAmerican, United And southwest Last month, their profit forecasts of 2025 lowered compared to their sunnier views at the beginning of the year.
Until the last minute, some travelers have been waiting for further aggravating matters to book flights.
“It was really, I would say in mid -May when we started seeing the Memorial Day bookings, increasing.” Jetblue Airways President Marty St. George told investors last month. “We had a fantastic commemoration day, much better than the forecast, and that really managed until June. But it has the feeling that people have only been waiting for a long time to make the final decisions.”
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There are always next year
Now some airlines are already thinking about how they can deal with constantly changing travel patterns next year.
“Schools go back earlier and earlier, but they also see that schools come out earlier and earlier,” Brian Znotins, American airlines'Vice President for Network Planning and Submission, said CNBC.
The public schools in Dallas and Fort Worth, Texas, returned on August 5, and Atlanta's public schools resumed on August 4th. In 2023, more than half of the country's public students returned to the classrooms in mid -August, according to the Pew Research Center.
Southwest ended his summer plan on August 5 of this year with his Texas roots, compared to August 15 in 2023.
“We are moving our entire summer plan the week before the Memorial Day,” said Znotin. “This is just a reaction to schools that are left out in spring.” These plans include the additions of a variety of long -haul flights.
“We are a year -round airline,” he continued. Znotins said that the wearer not only had to make sure that there are enough seats for peak times, but also know when they have to reduce in lighter quarters, as in the first three months of the year.
“For a network planner, the more difficult schedules for which there are less demand is because they can not only count among their flights when asked,” said Znotin. “If demand is lower, you have to find ways to win customers with a good quality plan and the product changes.”
American said his schedule after sitting in August 2019 was at the level in July 2019, but this year he was 6% lower in August.
The American forecast in the last month could lose an adjusted 10 cents up to 60 cents per share in the third quarter, which awaits the analysts. CEO Robert Isom said about a profit call that “July was hard”, although the airline tells that the trends have improved.
The capacity cuts recently promoted a better offer and demand talks for a better offer and a demand talke in the coming weeks.
“The mistake that some airlines make, try to build a church for Easter Sunday: they build their capacity basis for these peak times and then have far too many [employees]”, Said Raymond James Airline Analyst Savanthi Syth.
She said it was unusual that airlines trimmed their summer plans across the board before even the peak time ended, but it is optimistic about demand and tariffs in the future.
“Time has passed and people get a little more certainty about what their future looks like and they are more willing to spend,” she said.
