U.S. Airlines Gain; Sales Gradually Recovering As Europe Reopens By Investing.com

By Dhirendra Tripathi

Investing.com – Shares of American airline companies were up premarket Monday as number of bookings suggest more people are willing to travel amid vaccination rollouts and onset of summers.

American Airlines (NASDAQ:AAL) stock was up 2% while Delta (NYSE:DAL), United (NASDAQ:UAL) and JetBlue (NASDAQ:JBLU) were all up just over 1%.

Airline system sales fell 64.1% for the week ending April 18, compared with the level seen for the same week in 2019 when the world hadn’t heard of Covid-19, according to research from Bank of America (NYSE:BAC).  That marks a sequential improvement from the -66.3% and -69.8% levels of the prior two weeks.

The bank added domestic leisure is maintaining its strong run with tickets sold for this segment through online agencies down only 0.4% against the 2019 level.

In expectation of traffic improving further, with customers stuffed full of cash given the hefty levels of fiscal stimulus, airlines like American, Jet, United have also been adding capacities on both domestic and international routes with plans for more.

Adding to the growing air of confidence surrounding the battered travel sector, Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, told The New York Times Sunday that the European Union would likely allow fully vaccinated U.S. tourists to visit the region this summer, potentially helping the European tourist economy recover during its crucial summer season.