This photograph taken on August 7, 2018, shows an American Airlines Airbus A330-243 aircraft on the tarmac at Roissy-Charles de Gaulle Airport, north of Paris.
Airline executives say demand for flights to Europe from the U.S. has remained resilient into the fall, well past the traditional peak for trips to the region, as eager travelers make up for lost time and airlines look to boost revenue after more than two years of the coronavirus pandemic.
“I’ve never seen anything like this before in my life in terms of demand in the fall,” United Airlines’ senior vice president of global Network Planning and Alliances, Patrick Quayle, told CNBC.
It’s a welcome shift for airlines as they seek to drum up revenue after travel restrictions and concerns about Covid-19 sapped demand for many European trips in 2020 and 2021. Lucrative business travel segments have been slower to return than leisure, making these trips all the more crucial.
“I think there’s no question that people’s appetite for going to Europe has gotten longer,” said Kyle Potter, executive editor of Thrifty Traveler, a travel and flight deal website. “A lot of the really ugly flight prices led people to put off those kinds of trips that they were putting off for many years.”
“They saw some really gross $900, $1,200 airfare in July and August and maybe they saw a deal to get there for half the pricing,” this fall, Potter said.
Plus, a strong U.S. dollar is making fall trips to Europe more attractive, driving down costs of everything from shopping in Milan to high-end dining in Paris or London for many U.S. travelers.
Summer’s over, but the European travel season isn’t
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