DALLAS (AP) – A new report from Southwest Airlines indicates that the rise in COVID-19 cases around the country is cutting into travel bookings. That’s bad news for the airlines just before the important Thanksgiving holiday, normally a busy travel period.
Southwest said Thursday that leisure-travel bookings improved slightly in October, but that improvement is fading for November and December flights. Southwest says it’s not sure if the softer bookings are directly related to rising virus cases around the country.
But Nicholas Calio, the leader of the industry trade group Airlines for America, says it’s not hard to figure out why travel demand is softening.