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The carrier said in a regulatory filing on Wednesday that customers this month had booked fewer flights and were increasingly canceling trips they had already booked. This prompted Southwest to lower its operating revenue estimate for the month to 15-20% from what it recorded in August 2019. Previous estimates predicted a drop of 12-17% from a year ago. is two years old.
South West (LCV) said it was profitable in July, but the “recent negative effects” of the pandemic will make it difficult to earn a profit in the third quarter. The airline expects September revenues to decline 15% to 25% from the same month in 2019, but said demand for Labor Day travel “remains healthy, so far.” .
The airline’s shares were flat on Wednesday.
The warning is a sharp turn of events for Southwest, which predicted a few weeks ago that it would pay off in the third and fourth quarters based on strong booking trends for leisure travel. Southwest Chairman Tom Nealon said in July that so far “we haven’t seen any impact from the Delta variant.”
The highly contagious variant of the coronavirus is impacting global air travel. As of July 3, domestic air travel, measured by tickets issued by U.S. travel agencies and online booking companies, was just 3% below 2019 levels, according to the Economic Recovery Dashboard of CNN companies. However, domestic air travel has since slowed and, as of July 23, was down 22% from the same point in 2019.
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