Goldman is going back to the office next month. The fake work from Home jobs are about to end.

32andBelow wrote:

Goldman is going back to the office next month. The fake work from Home jobs are about to end.

Haha I like how you worded that "fake work from home jobs are about to end"

Going back to the office and traveling are 2 different things. The office will come first.

Nicknuzzii wrote:

Going back to the office and traveling are 2 different things. The office will come first.

And lest we forget - some of the biggest corporate clients, namely in tech, did tell their employees they could work remotely for the foreseeable future.

Business travel should start to return in 2022 but I agree - it’s going to be slow and it certainly won’t get back to 100 percent of what it was for a long time, if at all

If anything, the past year and half have proved most of the white collar jobs can be done from home. Manhattan commercial real estate is a complete disaster. A lot of companies allowing more people to have flexible WFH options and/or have decentralized offices outside of the city. Which means, they are looking to downsize their current real estate footprint.

I'm sure business travel will get back to 2019 level in a few years. But the question is when will it get back to the same % of total revenue as pre-COVID (if it ever happens). On TPAC flights, I see the corporate travel restrictions remain in place for many years.

it's a huge disaster for legacies if LCCs/ULCCs are already seeing daily booking revenue at 80+% of pre-COVID by early summer due to the domestic leisure recovery while business travel revenue is still under 70% of pre-COVID level by next summer.

Do we have any data on business class purchases? In my anecdotal experience, a lot of people are buying business class fares, albeit at a cheaper price, to improve social distancing and comfort. It’s also cheaper to upgrade; I know I’ve taken advantage of that and I know plenty of people who have done that as well.

Again, it’s anecdotal but it would be interesting to see if it’s a positive trend.

joeblow10 wrote:

Nicknuzzii wrote:

Going back to the office and traveling are 2 different things. The office will come first.

And lest we forget - some of the biggest corporate clients, namely in tech, did tell their employees they could work remotely for the foreseeable future.

Business travel should start to return in 2022 but I agree - it’s going to be slow and it certainly won’t get back to 100 percent of what it was for a long time, if at all

The idea that business travel will never return to 100% doesn't make sense to me, since business travel is tied to GDP. Since as the economy grows larger, naturally more business travel is necessary no matter what % of the workforce is working remotely, effectively meaning business travel would eventually come back to 100% unless you believe the economy will never grow again.

Using an example of Company A, even if Company A says they are cutting back business travel to from 2% down to 1% of expenses, 5+ years down the line as the company is 1.5x+ larger that 1% of expenses will be larger than it is today or next year, and therefore Company A will see a natural return in business travel overtime.

Let's not forget that there are also plenty of companies who won't cut travel at all vs. pre-covid in the coming years. That segment is the largest slice of the pie currently, and more companies are switching to that camp by the day.

tphuang wrote:

If anything, the past year and half have proved most of the white collar jobs can be done from home. Manhattan commercial real estate is a complete disaster. A lot of companies allowing more people to have flexible WFH options and/or have decentralized offices outside of the city. Which means, they are looking to downsize their current real estate footprint.

I'm sure business travel will get back to 2019 level in a few years. But the question is when will it get back to the same % of total revenue as pre-COVID (if it ever happens). On TPAC flights, I see the corporate travel restrictions remain in place for many years.

it's a huge disaster for legacies if LCCs/ULCCs are already seeing daily booking revenue at 80+% of pre-COVID by early summer due to the domestic leisure recovery while business travel revenue is still under 70% of pre-COVID level by next summer.

TPAC is more of an issue for UA, less so AA and DL. TPAC wasn't that lucrative for the latter two (less TPAC flying might actually improve margins for AA), and for AA it only made up ~3% of pax revenues, and for UA it was ~11% of pax revenues (Q3 2019)

I wouldn't consider 70% of business travel revenue next summer a huge disaster.

avi8 wrote:

Do we have any data on business class purchases? In my anecdotal experience, a lot of people are buying business class fares, albeit at a cheaper price, to improve social distancing and comfort. It’s also cheaper to upgrade; I know I’ve taken advantage of that and I know plenty of people who have done that as well.

Again, it’s anecdotal but it would be interesting to see if it’s a positive trend.

Pre-covid for Delta at least, most premium cabin purchases weren't from business travel:

"I think when you think about our premium products and services, you also ought to think that these are not only filled by corporate travelers. As a matter of fact, only -- less than a third of the seats are actually filled by the corporate travelers, and two-thirds are filled by non-corporates."

https://www.fool.com/earnings/call-tran ... -transcri/

I'm just using TPAC as an extreme example. TATL business travel is likely to be down for many years. At least that's what LH has predicted recently. On top of that, there are a lot of connection traffic onto the international flights. I don't know what the exact percentage of revenue was business travel pre-COVID, but I don't see it coming back to that % by 2024 or 2025. Anything further out is too far to judge.

If it takes US3 as a whole until 2024 to get back to 2019Q4 level of revenue, ULCCs could be 30 to 50% large in revenues vs by then.

And all of this assumes that we don't have a major recession from a possible real estate crash.

Midwestindy wrote:

joeblow10 wrote:

Nicknuzzii wrote:

Going back to the office and traveling are 2 different things. The office will come first.

And lest we forget - some of the biggest corporate clients, namely in tech, did tell their employees they could work remotely for the foreseeable future.

Business travel should start to return in 2022 but I agree - it’s going to be slow and it certainly won’t get back to 100 percent of what it was for a long time, if at all

The idea that business travel will never return to 100% doesn't make sense to me, since business travel is tied to GDP. Since as the economy grows larger, naturally more business travel is necessary no matter what % of the workforce is working remotely, effectively meaning business travel would eventually come back to 100% unless you believe the economy will never grow again.

Using an example of Company A, even if Company A says they are cutting back business travel to from 2% down to 1% of expenses, 5+ years down the line as the company is 1.5x+ larger that 1% of expenses will be larger than it is today or next year, and therefore Company A will see a natural return in business travel overtime.

Let's not forget that there are also plenty of companies who won't cut travel at all vs. pre-covid in the coming years. That segment is the largest slice of the pie currently, and more companies are switching to that camp by the day.

tphuang wrote:

If anything, the past year and half have proved most of the white collar jobs can be done from home. Manhattan commercial real estate is a complete disaster. A lot of companies allowing more people to have flexible WFH options and/or have decentralized offices outside of the city. Which means, they are looking to downsize their current real estate footprint.

I'm sure business travel will get back to 2019 level in a few years. But the question is when will it get back to the same % of total revenue as pre-COVID (if it ever happens). On TPAC flights, I see the corporate travel restrictions remain in place for many years.

it's a huge disaster for legacies if LCCs/ULCCs are already seeing daily booking revenue at 80+% of pre-COVID by early summer due to the domestic leisure recovery while business travel revenue is still under 70% of pre-COVID level by next summer.

TPAC is more of an issue for UA, less so AA and DL. TPAC wasn't that lucrative for the latter two (less TPAC flying might actually improve margins for AA), and for AA it only made up ~3% of pax revenues, and for UA it was ~11% of pax revenues (Q3 2019)

I wouldn't consider 70% of business travel revenue next summer a huge disaster.

avi8 wrote:

Do we have any data on business class purchases? In my anecdotal experience, a lot of people are buying business class fares, albeit at a cheaper price, to improve social distancing and comfort. It’s also cheaper to upgrade; I know I’ve taken advantage of that and I know plenty of people who have done that as well.

Again, it’s anecdotal but it would be interesting to see if it’s a positive trend.

Pre-covid for Delta at least, most premium cabin purchases weren't from business travel:

"I think when you think about our premium products and services, you also ought to think that these are not only filled by corporate travelers. As a matter of fact, only -- less than a third of the seats are actually filled by the corporate travelers, and two-thirds are filled by non-corporates."

https://www.fool.com/earnings/call-tran ... -transcri/

I think the problem is not the return to 100%, that will naturally happen as you said, the problem for the legacy carrier and what they are saying is the mixture of business to leisure traffic might never reach the level of 2019.

Very simple: If in 2019 two People travelled for business and 8 for leisure and the two people paid 10 dollar each per ticket and the leisure pax 1 dollar each, the airline industry made 28 dollars. Now DL as an example can offer 5 seats and offers 2 business and 3 leisure, they have 50% market share and make 23 dollars while F9 offers 5 leisure seats and makes 5 dollars. To cater to business clients the operation of DL costs 20 dollars and the operation of F9 costs 4 dollars.

DL has 3 dollars profit, F9 has 1 dollar profit.

Now if in 2030 there are two People travelling for business and 18 for leisure: DL offers 4 business seats and 6 leisure seats, F9 offers 10 leisure seats. 2 leisure travellers find no ticket.

DL spends 40 dollars on operation, but only makes 26 dollars --> massive loss
F9 earns 10 dollars and spends 8 --> good profit.

Even if Delta would offer 2 business seats and 8 leisure they only make 28 dollars and would have to spend roughly 24 dollars. Delta would still make a profit, the growth was only from 3 to 4 dollars (+25%) while F9 grew 100%.
This also includes for Delta to change their fleet less business seats, and in the long run a reduction of comfort to reduce costs to compete with F9.

About no one has said business travel has come to an end. But an awful lot of it was simply not economically justified. In the end the ultimate customer has to pay for it. And those ultimate customers are going to trim business travel to some degree. I would tend to go along with Gates's 50%. Those companies will win who can discern what the most important business travel is essential, or almost essential.

tphuang wrote:

If anything, the past year and half have proved most of the white collar jobs can be done from home. Manhattan commercial real estate is a complete disaster. A lot of companies allowing more people to have flexible WFH options and/or have decentralized offices outside of the city. Which means, they are looking to downsize their current real estate footprint.

I'm sure business travel will get back to 2019 level in a few years. But the question is when will it get back to the same % of total revenue as pre-COVID (if it ever happens). On TPAC flights, I see the corporate travel restrictions remain in place for many years.

it's a huge disaster for legacies if LCCs/ULCCs are already seeing daily booking revenue at 80+% of pre-COVID by early summer due to the domestic leisure recovery while business travel revenue is still under 70% of pre-COVID level by next summer.

No they proved you can work from home in an environment where everyone is working from home. They have not proved they can work from home while their competitors are on the road making in person visits.

32andBelow wrote:

tphuang wrote:

If anything, the past year and half have proved most of the white collar jobs can be done from home. Manhattan commercial real estate is a complete disaster. A lot of companies allowing more people to have flexible WFH options and/or have decentralized offices outside of the city. Which means, they are looking to downsize their current real estate footprint.

I'm sure business travel will get back to 2019 level in a few years. But the question is when will it get back to the same % of total revenue as pre-COVID (if it ever happens). On TPAC flights, I see the corporate travel restrictions remain in place for many years.

it's a huge disaster for legacies if LCCs/ULCCs are already seeing daily booking revenue at 80+% of pre-COVID by early summer due to the domestic leisure recovery while business travel revenue is still under 70% of pre-COVID level by next summer.

No they proved you can work from home in an environment where everyone is working from home. They have not proved they can work from home while their competitors are on the road making in person visits.

Do you have any idea how many people work in white collar jobs that don't require making road trips? The vast vast majority of Goldman Sachs job do not ask for their employees to be making road trips.

tphuang wrote:

32andBelow wrote:

tphuang wrote:

If anything, the past year and half have proved most of the white collar jobs can be done from home. Manhattan commercial real estate is a complete disaster. A lot of companies allowing more people to have flexible WFH options and/or have decentralized offices outside of the city. Which means, they are looking to downsize their current real estate footprint.

I'm sure business travel will get back to 2019 level in a few years. But the question is when will it get back to the same % of total revenue as pre-COVID (if it ever happens). On TPAC flights, I see the corporate travel restrictions remain in place for many years.

it's a huge disaster for legacies if LCCs/ULCCs are already seeing daily booking revenue at 80+% of pre-COVID by early summer due to the domestic leisure recovery while business travel revenue is still under 70% of pre-COVID level by next summer.

No they proved you can work from home in an environment where everyone is working from home. They have not proved they can work from home while their competitors are on the road making in person visits.

Do you have any idea how many people work in white collar jobs that don't require making road trips?

Those people aren’t relevant to this conversation. Also I’d say if those people continue to work from home some of them may move. And then they WILL be traveling several times a year to the home office.

Nicknuzzii wrote:

Going back to the office and traveling are 2 different things. The office will come first.

Sounds to me, at least for JPM and Goldman, travel might come shortly afterwards:

"As an illustration, Dimon said he was “brimming with ideas” after a trip to California last year that he wouldn’t get from Zoom meetings."

32andBelow wrote:

tphuang wrote:

32andBelow wrote:

No they proved you can work from home in an environment where everyone is working from home. They have not proved they can work from home while their competitors are on the road making in person visits.

Do you have any idea how many people work in white collar jobs that don't require making road trips?

Those people aren’t relevant to this conversation. Also I’d say if those people continue to work from home some of them may move. And then they WILL be traveling several times a year to the home office.

you said "Goldman is going back to the office next month. The fake work from Home jobs are about to end."

You didn't have any qualifier. And you responded to my comment which was not restricted to just road warriors. Why would you assume that I'm only talking about road warriors?

And from the context of Goldman employees going back to the office next month, that's entirely different from starting to ravel for work. You don't have to be back in the office to do business travel to see clients. And you can transition from mostly WFH to hybrid work model without increasing business travel.

FluidFlow wrote:

Midwestindy wrote:

joeblow10 wrote:

And lest we forget - some of the biggest corporate clients, namely in tech, did tell their employees they could work remotely for the foreseeable future.

Business travel should start to return in 2022 but I agree - it’s going to be slow and it certainly won’t get back to 100 percent of what it was for a long time, if at all

The idea that business travel will never return to 100% doesn't make sense to me, since business travel is tied to GDP. Since as the economy grows larger, naturally more business travel is necessary no matter what % of the workforce is working remotely, effectively meaning business travel would eventually come back to 100% unless you believe the economy will never grow again.

Using an example of Company A, even if Company A says they are cutting back business travel to from 2% down to 1% of expenses, 5+ years down the line as the company is 1.5x+ larger that 1% of expenses will be larger than it is today or next year, and therefore Company A will see a natural return in business travel overtime.

Let's not forget that there are also plenty of companies who won't cut travel at all vs. pre-covid in the coming years. That segment is the largest slice of the pie currently, and more companies are switching to that camp by the day.

tphuang wrote:

If anything, the past year and half have proved most of the white collar jobs can be done from home. Manhattan commercial real estate is a complete disaster. A lot of companies allowing more people to have flexible WFH options and/or have decentralized offices outside of the city. Which means, they are looking to downsize their current real estate footprint.

I'm sure business travel will get back to 2019 level in a few years. But the question is when will it get back to the same % of total revenue as pre-COVID (if it ever happens). On TPAC flights, I see the corporate travel restrictions remain in place for many years.

it's a huge disaster for legacies if LCCs/ULCCs are already seeing daily booking revenue at 80+% of pre-COVID by early summer due to the domestic leisure recovery while business travel revenue is still under 70% of pre-COVID level by next summer.

TPAC is more of an issue for UA, less so AA and DL. TPAC wasn't that lucrative for the latter two (less TPAC flying might actually improve margins for AA), and for AA it only made up ~3% of pax revenues, and for UA it was ~11% of pax revenues (Q3 2019)

I wouldn't consider 70% of business travel revenue next summer a huge disaster.

avi8 wrote:

Do we have any data on business class purchases? In my anecdotal experience, a lot of people are buying business class fares, albeit at a cheaper price, to improve social distancing and comfort. It’s also cheaper to upgrade; I know I’ve taken advantage of that and I know plenty of people who have done that as well.

Again, it’s anecdotal but it would be interesting to see if it’s a positive trend.

Pre-covid for Delta at least, most premium cabin purchases weren't from business travel:

"I think when you think about our premium products and services, you also ought to think that these are not only filled by corporate travelers. As a matter of fact, only -- less than a third of the seats are actually filled by the corporate travelers, and two-thirds are filled by non-corporates."

https://www.fool.com/earnings/call-tran ... -transcri/

I think the problem is not the return to 100%, that will naturally happen as you said, the problem for the legacy carrier and what they are saying is the mixture of business to leisure traffic might never reach the level of 2019.

Very simple: If in 2019 two People travelled for business and 8 for leisure and the two people paid 10 dollar each per ticket and the leisure pax 1 dollar each, the airline industry made 28 dollars. Now DL as an example can offer 5 seats and offers 2 business and 3 leisure, they have 50% market share and make 23 dollars while F9 offers 5 leisure seats and makes 5 dollars. To cater to business clients the operation of DL costs 20 dollars and the operation of F9 costs 4 dollars.

DL has 3 dollars profit, F9 has 1 dollar profit.

Now if in 2030 there are two People travelling for business and 18 for leisure: DL offers 4 business seats and 6 leisure seats, F9 offers 10 leisure seats. 2 leisure travellers find no ticket.

DL spends 40 dollars on operation, but only makes 26 dollars --> massive loss
F9 earns 10 dollars and spends 8 --> good profit.

Even if Delta would offer 2 business seats and 8 leisure they only make 28 dollars and would have to spend roughly 24 dollars. Delta would still make a profit, the growth was only from 3 to 4 dollars (+25%) while F9 grew 100%.
This also includes for Delta to change their fleet less business seats, and in the long run a reduction of comfort to reduce costs to compete with F9.

I definitely agree with you that the mix of business to leisure likely won't ever be the same. Not sure I agree with your point on profits though, since I think future profits are slightly more complex.

frmrCapCadet wrote:

About no one has said business travel has come to an end. But an awful lot of it was simply not economically justified. In the end the ultimate customer has to pay for it. And those ultimate customers are going to trim business travel to some degree. I would tend to go along with Gates's 50%. Those companies will win who can discern what the most important business travel is essential, or almost essential.

I'll bite:

So business travel is currently at 25% of 2019, what assumptions are you making, that would make business travel only recover an additional 25% in the next 5 or so years?

Also, the customer does not always pay for travel, in fact a large subset of business travel isn't paid for by customers.

Midwestindy wrote:

FluidFlow wrote:

Midwestindy wrote:

The idea that business travel will never return to 100% doesn't make sense to me, since business travel is tied to GDP. Since as the economy grows larger, naturally more business travel is necessary no matter what % of the workforce is working remotely, effectively meaning business travel would eventually come back to 100% unless you believe the economy will never grow again.

Using an example of Company A, even if Company A says they are cutting back business travel to from 2% down to 1% of expenses, 5+ years down the line as the company is 1.5x+ larger that 1% of expenses will be larger than it is today or next year, and therefore Company A will see a natural return in business travel overtime.

Let's not forget that there are also plenty of companies who won't cut travel at all vs. pre-covid in the coming years. That segment is the largest slice of the pie currently, and more companies are switching to that camp by the day.



TPAC is more of an issue for UA, less so AA and DL. TPAC wasn't that lucrative for the latter two (less TPAC flying might actually improve margins for AA), and for AA it only made up ~3% of pax revenues, and for UA it was ~11% of pax revenues (Q3 2019)

I wouldn't consider 70% of business travel revenue next summer a huge disaster.



Pre-covid for Delta at least, most premium cabin purchases weren't from business travel:

"I think when you think about our premium products and services, you also ought to think that these are not only filled by corporate travelers. As a matter of fact, only -- less than a third of the seats are actually filled by the corporate travelers, and two-thirds are filled by non-corporates."

https://www.fool.com/earnings/call-tran ... -transcri/

I think the problem is not the return to 100%, that will naturally happen as you said, the problem for the legacy carrier and what they are saying is the mixture of business to leisure traffic might never reach the level of 2019.

Very simple: If in 2019 two People travelled for business and 8 for leisure and the two people paid 10 dollar each per ticket and the leisure pax 1 dollar each, the airline industry made 28 dollars. Now DL as an example can offer 5 seats and offers 2 business and 3 leisure, they have 50% market share and make 23 dollars while F9 offers 5 leisure seats and makes 5 dollars. To cater to business clients the operation of DL costs 20 dollars and the operation of F9 costs 4 dollars.

DL has 3 dollars profit, F9 has 1 dollar profit.

Now if in 2030 there are two People travelling for business and 18 for leisure: DL offers 4 business seats and 6 leisure seats, F9 offers 10 leisure seats. 2 leisure travellers find no ticket.

DL spends 40 dollars on operation, but only makes 26 dollars --> massive loss
F9 earns 10 dollars and spends 8 --> good profit.

Even if Delta would offer 2 business seats and 8 leisure they only make 28 dollars and would have to spend roughly 24 dollars. Delta would still make a profit, the growth was only from 3 to 4 dollars (+25%) while F9 grew 100%.
This also includes for Delta to change their fleet less business seats, and in the long run a reduction of comfort to reduce costs to compete with F9.

I definitely agree with you that the mix of business to leisure likely won't ever be the same. Not sure I agree with your point on profits though, since I think future profits are slightly more complex.

frmrCapCadet wrote:

About no one has said business travel has come to an end. But an awful lot of it was simply not economically justified. In the end the ultimate customer has to pay for it. And those ultimate customers are going to trim business travel to some degree. I would tend to go along with Gates's 50%. Those companies will win who can discern what the most important business travel is essential, or almost essential.

I'll bite:

So business travel is currently at 25% of 2019, what assumptions are you making, that would make business travel only recover an additional 25% in the next 5 or so years?

Also, the customer does not always pay for travel, in fact a large subset of business travel isn't paid for by customers.

And when you make the sale online or in the person the product needs to be deployed/installed/trained and that happens on site.

I have no doubt that a lot of business travel is essential. Nor that a lot of business travel is useful. But I do note that companies which did a lot of business travel survived a hell of a lot better than say restaurants.

Based on the current week’s (Sunday-Saturday) TSA checkpoint numbers I believe we will break 10,000,000 travelers this week. I know it’s Mother’s Day weekend but the each day’s numbers are up. Some of this is the increased capacity started this week as May schedules started. Let’s see what happens!

Pretty big number for a Thursday. We could hit 1.8+ today

JUST IN: @TSA screened 1,644,050 people at security checkpoints yesterday, Thursday, May 6. It's the highest checkpoint throughput since the start of the pandemic. Perspective: On the same day in 2019 (pre-pandemic), 2,555,342 people were screened.

Yep.....a uptick in some additional flights, and DL opening up middle seats put a nice chunk of additional capacity out there. Plus, like said Mothers Day weekend, and a sizable chunk of the traveling public has at least one dose of the vaccine at this point. (I saw a stat that said vaccination rates for household incomes above $100k is over 75%, which is a big swath of those who fly).

I did my contribution yesterday. I was on a full 717 into ATL yesterday on my way back to DTW.
I connected through ATL on both Tuesday night and Thursday night this week, first time going through these since pre-pandemic.
I will say, I remember what Thursday evenings in ATL used to look like in 2019 and its nothing like it at all now.
The dearth of business travelers is extremely noticeable. The Skyclubs are relatively quiet, a a noticeable lack of the usual hordes of business travels that used to epically define ATL on Thursday nights as all the consultants/professional services/sale reps/convention crowd made their way homes.
There is definitely more business travel than there was even just a month ago, but its painfully obvious when you ATL on a Thursday night that that segment isn't there.
Its all leisure and sandals/shorts/t-tops/and instragram influencers outnumber the biz cas & rollerboard crowd about 50:1.
The crowd headed to LAS last night looked like quite the rowdy bunch in the gatehold area.

[twoid][/twoid]

32andBelow wrote:

Goldman is going back to the office next month. The fake work from Home jobs are about to end.

People might be headed back to offices but business travel certainly won't be back in real numbers for a very long time.

The legacies are gonna become even larger domestic leisure carriers for a while. That demand will sky rocket later in summer. They will have the capacity

slcdeltarumd11 wrote:

[twoid][/twoid]

32andBelow wrote:

Goldman is going back to the office next month. The fake work from Home jobs are about to end.

People might be headed back to offices but business travel certainly won't be back in real numbers for a very long time.

The legacies are gonna become even larger domestic leisure carriers for a while. That demand will sky rocket later in summer. They will have the capacity

Either way people are going to be flying. If they don’t have to work they’ll go play

slcdeltarumd11 wrote:

[twoid][/twoid]

32andBelow wrote:

Goldman is going back to the office next month. The fake work from Home jobs are about to end.

People might be headed back to offices but business travel certainly won't be back in real numbers for a very long time.

The legacies are gonna become even larger domestic leisure carriers for a while. That demand will sky rocket later in summer. They will have the capacity

Either way people are going to be flying. If they don’t have to work they’ll go play

Another big day 1.7M yesterday

Have to think Mother’s Day plays big into that, and many colleges/universities finished up Spring this week. I think we can officially start calling it Summer travel season.

I flew Thursday and TPA was slammed! And LGA and ORD were also very busy, I have seen the ticket prices skyrocket where I had to reevaluate my summer travel plans. Obviously with most airlines still updating the schedule a month at a time it’s hard to figure out if those prices are set or something of they will drop.

This last week (Sunday-Saturday) wee broke 10 million according to TSA. Total was 10,270,649!!! Let’s see when we break 11 million! Maybe Memorial Day Weekend???

Updates this week:

Average fares are 15% higher vs. 2019 than they were in March, yields are even closer to 2019 accounting for the average stage length being shorter.

All outdoorsy tourist spots are above or close to 2019 capacity levels

Mexico & Caribbean continue to carry the vast majority of international traffic.




https://www.airlines.org/dataset/impact ... -updates/#

Rental cars are starting to become a big issue:

I took this at MIA yesterday, didn't think to take a picture until I was almost out of the lot, but the lot was barren and the lines even for rewards members were long. Took another 15+ minutes to exit once we already got the car since the line to exit was so long:



https://www.wtoc.com/2021/05/06/patienc ... -shortage/

"The average price for a four-day rental jumped from $260 in February to $321 in March, and hit $388 during the final week of April, according to data from travel search tool Hopper."

Remember all those flights added to BZN?? Welp:

"Bozeman, Montana, was the most expensive city to rent a car in during the final week of April, with an average price of $259 per day, according to travel search website Kayak. That’s up 278% compared with 2019."

"Hawaii, which has a tougher time bringing in new cars, has also seen steep increases. Four of the 10 most expensive cities for car rentals were in Hawaii, all of which saw prices more than double compared with 2019, according to Kayak."

https://www.chicagotribune.com/business ... story.html

Rental car companies really blew it liquidating everything

Midwestindy wrote:

Updates this week:

Average fares are 15% higher vs. 2019 than they were in March, yields are even closer to 2019 accounting for the average stage length being shorter.

All outdoorsy tourist spots are above or close to 2019 capacity levels

Mexico & Caribbean continue to carry the vast majority of international traffic.




https://www.airlines.org/dataset/impact ... -updates/#

Rental cars are starting to become a big issue:

I took this at MIA yesterday, didn't think to take a picture until I was almost out of the lot, but the lot was barren and the lines even for rewards members were long. Took another 15+ minutes to exit once we already got the car since the line to exit was so long:



https://www.wtoc.com/2021/05/06/patienc ... -shortage/

"The average price for a four-day rental jumped from $260 in February to $321 in March, and hit $388 during the final week of April, according to data from travel search tool Hopper."

Remember all those flights added to BZN?? Welp:

"Bozeman, Montana, was the most expensive city to rent a car in during the final week of April, with an average price of $259 per day, according to travel search website Kayak. That’s up 278% compared with 2019."

"Hawaii, which has a tougher time bringing in new cars, has also seen steep increases. Four of the 10 most expensive cities for car rentals were in Hawaii, all of which saw prices more than double compared with 2019, according to Kayak."

https://www.chicagotribune.com/business ... story.html

As for the rental car issue you mentioned, it sure seems like they are hoarding them at MCO lol. There was a line to drop off our car, not too fun.

Airports are packed today. I think it'll be the new covid-era record. We'll find out tomorrow.

SRQLOT wrote:

I flew Thursday and TPA was slammed! And LGA and ORD were also very busy, I have seen the ticket prices skyrocket where I had to reevaluate my summer travel plans. Obviously with most airlines still updating the schedule a month at a time it’s hard to figure out if those prices are set or something of they will drop.

LGA was packed? Have not heard that in a while. What airline?

Hopefully airlines continue to add back to NYC.

seatown1 wrote:

Airports are packed today. I think it'll be the new covid-era record. We'll find out tomorrow.

I think it will for sure. I think people leave on wed Thur Friday and then it all compresses to Sunday for the return

32andBelow wrote:

seatown1 wrote:

Airports are packed today. I think it'll be the new covid-era record. We'll find out tomorrow.

I think it will for sure. I think people leave on wed Thur Friday and then it all compresses to Sunday for the return

College Move-out weekend and round 1 of graduations.....

AmericanAir88 wrote:

SRQLOT wrote:

I flew Thursday and TPA was slammed! And LGA and ORD were also very busy, I have seen the ticket prices skyrocket where I had to reevaluate my summer travel plans. Obviously with most airlines still updating the schedule a month at a time it’s hard to figure out if those prices are set or something of they will drop.

LGA was packed? Have not heard that in a while. What airline?

Hopefully airlines continue to add back to NYC.

Deltas terminal, my flight from Tampa was full on the A320, it could be just that area though.

And ORD was packed on American side on Sunday during the morning rush, couldn’t find a nice quiet spot. So yeah definitely getting back to normal.

Montana and Wyoming are in a totally different playing field this summer... according to the OAG schedule, Bozeman is the third fastest-growing domestic airport at the moment, just behind EYW and SRQ

BZN will see nearly 87% more seats in July 2021 compared to two years ago. JAC is seeing a 40% increase in seats compared to 2019.

https://thepointsguy.com/news/aa-leisur ... extension/

As for the rental cars in Montana. A five day rental in BZN for an intermediate car in June is running $460...a day! Total with fees is almost $2400. Kalispell and Missoula? Forget it, sold out everywhere.

The rental car companies might be short on supply, due to liquidation, but the demand is so high they're making up for it by rates some 200 percent higher then 2019

A lot of those rental car facilities at those smaller mountain town / national park related airports are typically local / franchise owned and are not corporate facilities like at major airports. They just don’t have a lot of cars in the first place even in a normal year let alone this year with the western gold rush on flights. I am guessing the hospitality industry in these places is really struggling to get staff to operate this summer

TSA screened 1.7M people yesterday - the highest since the pandemic started. 2.0M likely by Memorial Day. (Assuming the capacity is available.)

SRQLOT wrote:

AmericanAir88 wrote:

SRQLOT wrote:

I flew Thursday and TPA was slammed! And LGA and ORD were also very busy, I have seen the ticket prices skyrocket where I had to reevaluate my summer travel plans. Obviously with most airlines still updating the schedule a month at a time it’s hard to figure out if those prices are set or something of they will drop.

LGA was packed? Have not heard that in a while. What airline?

Hopefully airlines continue to add back to NYC.

Deltas terminal, my flight from Tampa was full on the A320, it could be just that area though.

And ORD was packed on American side on Sunday during the morning rush, couldn’t find a nice quiet spot. So yeah definitely getting back to normal.

ORD has been packed for months, but I have noticed it looking more pre-pandemic lately. Glad to hear that LGA is filling up. Such a fantastic new terminal needs the crowds. AA still hasn’t even finished their section. The terminal is going to look great post-pandemic.

Hope the new Delta terminal opens soon. I tend to go to JFK if I fly DL these days.

Monday was another record breaking Monday, 1,657,722 passengers through TSA. Last week (Sunday-Saturday) was the first since Covid with 10 million. Based on the first two days of this week and the increase in capacity starting for May it looks like we may hit 11 million this week. Sunday and Monday's increase over last week is 274,893, only need an increase of 454,458 spread of the five remaining days.

Nicknuzzii wrote:

Going back to the office and traveling are 2 different things. The office will come first.

I actually think it's going to be the opposite. People will start traveling before they go back to full-time work from office.

I would divide business travel into 2 parts:
1) external / customer-facing. This is either sales, customer support, or even conferences where you meet and network with others in your industry.
2) Internal - large corporations with a bunch of offices spread around the world will often send people back and forth as needed. So some specialist lawyer in one office whose expertise is needed on a deal another office is working on might fly there and spend a week helping out. Or every quarter people from different offices get together to meet each other.

I think internal travel will largely be replaced by zoom meetings and remote work. But external travel will come back to previous levels. Why? Because customers *like* meeting their vendors face-to-face. Whether it's for a sales pitch (would you give someone you never physically met a $10 million contract?) or for support, if you are only providing remote service, and your competitor is providing in-person service, even if you're just as good, you are at a significant disadvantage.

OTOH, I think that plenty of white collar work will become partly WFH. Working in-office 3 days, and at home 2-days a week might actually improve productivity if you can spend the 2 days at home not being distracted by office meetings and such and can just get your work done. 3 days every week is plenty to schedule your meetings, keep up with colleagues, keep a team together, and in general get most of the benefits touted for working from a shared office.

So we might see external business travel pick up fairly soon (all it takes if for one of your competitors to start and soon everyone will have to keep up), before WFH is completely gone. That said, I'm not sure how much business travel is internal vs external so not sure what that means for the market as a whole.

US-Mexico traffic now UP nearly 10% vs. 2019, even with increased capacity last week, LFs still rose:

AAA also expecting 77% of 2019 air travel for Memorial Day




https://newsroom.aaa.com/2021/05/memori ... 7-million/
https://www.airlines.org/dataset/impact ... -updates/#

The records continue Tuesday was 1,315,493 per TSA. The highest Tuesday since March 10, 2019. I believe we are still on track for 11 million this week. We are up 456,283 people in three days (Sunday-Tuesday). We are seeing the May capacity increase being filled by passengers as shown in graph above. The question now may be when will we hit 12 million in a week? I think we will need more capacity to get to 12 million but maybe over the holiday weekend.

1,424,664 - Wednesday another record, highest Wednesday since March 11, 2019. I believe we will blow past 11 million TSA screenings this week. With three days left in the week we only need an increase of 117,342. If capacity allows for this rate of increase to continue we could see 12 million over the Memorial Day week.

"I think internal travel will largely be replaced by zoom meetings and remote work. But external travel will come back to previous levels. Why? Because customers *like* meeting their vendors face-to-face. "

There is a whole generation rising into positions of authority who buy everything on-line now. They wouldn't think of going into a store. Might they feel the same for some corporate purchases?

Anyone saying that it will be a very long time before business travel returns to 2019 level must be too young to have lived thru the invention of the Internet and subsequent dot.com bubble when the same exact conversations were taking place. I'll give it another 2 years, tops.
I still remember my very first video conference at the office in the late 90's. This is the future, we'll never need to travel again, everyone said LOL

32andBelow wrote:

Rental car companies really blew it liquidating everything

Depending on location this is going to be one of the biggest hurdles the travel industry faces. With the shortage of rental cars, many Uber and Lyft drivers in some location have stopped driving for safety reasons, and a shortage of taxi drivers whose profession was under attack well before the pandemic it will definitely be challenging for vacationers to get around once they arrive at their destination.

That being said I don't blame the rental car companies for liquidating most of their inventory. Airlines could ground their aircraft as a way of reducing their cost. A car sitting on a lot is costing a rental car company money not a lot of money but there is still a cost. Those cost add up quickly when you multiply it times tens of thousands of cars just sitting across the entire US and not just airport location but neighborhood locations as well. these companies had no choice but to do fire sales to reduce their cost because there was almost no money coming in at all.

What is really hurting the rental car companies now is the semi-conductor chip shortage. As a result car manufactures are now limiting fleet sales because they make more money off the sale of a new vehicle at a dealership than they do in fleet sales. Until this semi-conductor chip shortage is worked out rental car companies will continue to struggle to find new cars and for now no one knows when this shortage will end.

Well, CDC just announced that fully vaccinated individuals shouldn’t need masks indoors or outdoors, regardless of the size of the group. Obviously public transport will still need masks until it gets more under control globally, but this should further bolster what we already know will be a massive travel summer within the States.