Travel
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Number Crunch
Airlines are going on a buying and hiring spree as customers return to the skies
$30 billion: The estimated cost of the 270 airplanes United Airlines is buying in preparation for the return of air travel, according to Reuters. The order is the largest in the company’s history.
The airlines are betting that the great pandemic staycation is over. Many have begun investing heavily in anticipation of consumers once again taking to the skies. United Airlines announced an order of 200 Boeing 737 MAX jets and 70 Airbus SE A321neos in a deal costing over $30 billion (before discounts). The move is part of the company’s plan to invest in over 500 new planes, many…
The surprising resilience of the digital nomad and the coming work-from-abroad boom
For more than a year, the travel and hospitality sector has been absolutely wrecked by the Covid-19 pandemic. With many countries’ borders effectively closed, international travel has been especially hard hit. According to the UN World Tourism Organization, international tourist arrivals in 2020 were down 79% compared to 2019. Some 120 million tourism jobs have been put at risk, with the economic damage likely to exceed $1 trillion in 2020 alone. …
Object of the Week
After more than a year of travel being ground to a halt, timing is everything
Object of the Week is a column exploring the objects a culture obsesses over and what that reveals about us.
A year deep into a deadly pandemic that crippled the travel industry — U.S. passenger traffic is down by half — does not sound like the best time for a startup airline to take delivery of 60 brand-new planes.
But maybe that assumption is wrong. Maybe, in fact, a few dozen crisp new jets, painted in snazzy metallic blues, are a perfect physical symbol for a category that seems, surprisingly, poised to take off again.
Number Crunch
Consumers really, really, really want a vacation
38%: That’s the share of Americans who would be willing to give up sex for a year in order to travel again immediately, according to a recent survey by online hotel search platform Trivago, as reported by CNBC.
In the same survey — which included 2,000 adults across the U.S. and U.K. — more than 80% of respondents said that the inability to travel over the past year has been the worst part of the pandemic. …
Number Crunch
The Year of the Ox begins on a downer
61%: That’s the projected decrease in Chinese Lunar New Year travel compared to 2019, reports CNN.
China’s Ministry of Transport is predicting around 1.15 billion trips during the new year travel season, which lasts about 40 days and starts around two weeks before the Year of the Ox kicks off on February 12. That would make the travel figure for this Lunar New Year the lowest since the government began to release official statistics in 2003. Traditionally, the season is marked by lots of travel, particularly from city-based workers heading back home to celebrate with family. …
Number Crunch
Airline wine: It’s not a punchline if it can help the bottom line
$40,000: That’s how much American Airlines is hoping to make this quarter through its new Flagship Cellars program, which delivers wine that the airline would normally serve onboard to customers on the ground, Bloomberg reported. Wine use on airlines has dropped 80% during the pandemic, Bloomberg noted, maybe because it’s hard to drink wine while keeping your mask on during a flight, but more likely because a lot fewer people have been flying in the first place.
American Airlines posted an annual loss of $8.9 billion in 2020, a record for the airline. Against that figure, $40,000 a quarter in…
Number Crunch
Because what’s more liberating than backyard glamping?
25%: That’s the increase in sales of camping gear in the third quarter of 2020 over the prior year, according to the Wall Street Journal, citing NPD Group data. One big reason for this apparent uptick of interest in the great outdoors is, of course, the pandemic. With many traditional entertainment options like movies and concerts shuttered — and hopping on a plane or taking a cruise losing its appeal — more consumers have apparently gotten so desperate to get out of the house they are willing to buy a tent and a Yeti cooler and sleep in the woods.
The Ticker
In 2008, few believed the startup could convince people to open their homes to strangers. In 2020, they’re counting on it to rescue the travel industry.
Welcome to The Ticker, a series that examines everything you need to know about companies going public.
More than 12 years since its founding and less than nine months after the first U.S. lockdown order, Airbnb is slated to go public. It represents a remarkable show of resilience for a company in the travel and hospitality sectors, which were both battered by the coronavirus.
Airbnb’s performance during the pandemic may help persuade the market that much upside lies ahead. CEO Brian Chesky moved early this year to cut costs, adapt the business to a virtual world, and raise $2 billion…
Number of the Day
As China recovers from Covid, its travel industry comes roaring back
425 million: That’s how many domestic trips Chinese travelers took during the recent Golden Week holiday period, according to a Bloomberg report citing figures from the country’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism. That puts this year’s holiday travel at 80% of what it was last year before the pandemic.
While a new wave of the pandemic is sweeping Europe, and the case rate is spiking in the United States, the coronavirus outbreak has been largely under control in China for months. That’s what’s made China’s relatively robust holiday period possible: Hotel prices rose, airline sales were up, and daily tickets…
Number of the Day
Bookings on the platform collapsed when the pandemic hit, but rebounded within months
300 miles or less: That’s how close to home the majority of guests booked their Airbnbs this August, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The pandemic has been a roller-coaster ride for Airbnb. After taking drastic steps to keep the company afloat in the early days of the pandemic, including laying off a quarter of its workforce and taking on billions of dollars in debt, fortunes quickly turned around for the home-sharing giant, with bookings back to pre-pandemic levels by July. …
Marker
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