Delta Executives See Strong U.S., International Travel Demand

25.08.2023 - 13:45 / skift.com / Glen Hauenstein / Delta Air Lines / Summer Travel / Edward Russell / Airlines

All that talk of slowing air travel demand and a potentially weak summer? Throw it out the window, Delta Air Lines executives said Thursday.

“[We] know there’s a lot of anxiety about domestic demand for the summer, but we don’t share that anxiety,” Glen Hauenstein, president of the Atlanta-based carrier, said during Delta’s first-quarter results call.

Wall Street analysts have in recent weeks raised concerns over domestic travel demand citing data showing a slowdown in new bookings. In a report Monday, Bank of America analysts highlight a slowdown in net bookings and wrote that Delta may mention “near-term softening” during its then upcoming earnings call.

The data cited by Bank of America and others reflects a change in booking patterns towards a new normal — and not a softening in demand — Hauenstein said. For example, during the pandemic many people bought flights close to their travel date because they were not sure they would take the trip. The end of change and cancellation fees enabled this. However, now people are booking trips further out but are more likely to change their trips because of the absence of those same fees. So while the growth in new bookings may be slowing, there is still a lot of demand — and pent-up demand — for air travel.

One measure of this are air traffic liabilities, or the value of tickets already sold for future travel. At the end of March, Delta had $11.2 billion in such liabilities, a 23 percent increase year-over-year and a whopping 70 percent jump from pre-pandemic levels. In other words: A lot more people are booking trips earlier than they used to with the confidence that they can change their flights later if needed.

Revenue growth, however, is slowing. For the second quarter, Delta forecasts only a 15-17 percent increase year-over-year; or a 14-15 percent increase compared to 2019 — both exceptional in normal times. But the rate of increase is slower than in the fourth quarter when revenue jumped 17 percent from 2019 levels.

“We believe it largely reflects geographic trends beginning to normalize after last year’s period of significant abnormality,” J.P. Morgan analyst Jamie Baker wrote on the air travel demand environment on Tuesday.

In terms of revenue, Delta brought in nearly $4.8 billion from premium travel and its loyalty rewards in the first quarter, or 46 percent of all passenger revenues. That represents a 21 percent increase over 2019 levels. The airline is making big investments in premium travel as a bulwark against any potential slowdown.

Longhaul international travel is back. The segment has recovered slower than domestic flying largely due to Covid-related border restrictions. Those disappeared in most countries last year resulting in bumper