Potential Good News: People Are Starting to Travel Less

What goes up must go down.

Demand for airline tickets surged in 2021 as soon as restrictions loosened, vaccines became available and people began feeling comfortable traveling again, and were intent on making up for lost time.

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But an unfortunate side-effect was that demand far outstripped supply, as airlines suffered a significant labor shortage on account of all the pilots who took early retirement packages during the pandemic, as well as crew members who became sick from covid. The result was that ticket pieces increased, as did airport congestion, all while delays and cancellations became more frequent.

But the good news is that demand seems to be slowly deescalating from last year’s peak, according to a new Bank of America analysis of credit card spending.

The bank’s Consumer Checkpoint newsletter found that spending on airlines was up just 0.9% from 2022, a drop of 4.5 percentage points compared with year-over-year figures from March. 

Additionally, between May 7 and May 14, sales volume in dollars was ahead of the 2022 level by 4.4%, and the total number of tickets sold was up 5%, a big drop from a few weeks ago. Between April 16 and April 23, sales volume topped 2022 by 12%, while the total number of ticket sales was 7.8% above 2022. 

It remains to be seen if this moderation continue through the summer and lead to less congestion, but perhaps we might be in for a calmer and more affordable vacation season.