U.S. domestic air travel is propelled by the increased number of entrepreneurs who have impacted the demand for leisure travel and business trips. Delta Air Lines Inc, American Airline Group Inc, Southwest Airlines Company, and United Airlines Holding Inc, are the major firms with the most significant airline traffic in domestic air travel. Unsurprisingly, the covid-19 pandemic also disrupted the stability of the U.S. domestic air travel operations reducing it by 71% in 2020 (Hotle & Mumbower, 2020). As a result, more than 32% of the United States markets declined. More so, large and busy airports in the country experienced a significant reduction in services. The United States domestic travel sector was negatively impacted in March 2020, even after the first case of covid-19 was discovered in January in Washington DC. Nevertheless, in that month, more than 15% of the domestic air travel operations, scheduled and performed departures were observed in the country. This continued following the 69% decrease in April 2020, whereby the majority of the airline firms were now on the alert regarding the issue with the virus, and they began adjusting their schedules.
Hotle & Mumbower (2020) allege that following the results of covid-19 on the airline entreprise, there was a significant drop in the domestic markets being served, which were initially 6,141. However, this number dropped to 4,505 in April 2020, 26.6%. In addition, this number got worse as the pandemic became more severe.
International U.S. Air Travel Operations
Significantly, the pandemic halted the U.S. airline domestic operations, causing economic challenges; a more significant drop in international air travel operations was observed. Sanchez et al. (2020) term this challenge as the end of the aviation industry as the international air traffic reduced following the quick geographic spread of the covid0-19 pandemic. The American commercial and cargo airlines that serve in the global market that tried to operate regular flights were banned by the individual country’s restrictions on mobility. Consequently, this interprets that there was a sudden drop in the international air travel operations across Europe, Asia, and Africa, which resulted in the economic stability of the U.S. due to loss of revenue. Only the necessities were allowed to fly across borders, with the ban of business and leisure travelers from the U.S. to other countries and into the U.S. With no guarantee of when the pandemic will reduce or end, the economic stability of the airline firms operating in the international market was unknown as they went bankrupt within the first six months after the partial lockdown.
It is true to say that the aviation industry took a drastic turn from a flourishing industry to a shocking one caused by the crisis of the covid-19 pandemic. Before the pandemic, most of the firms operating in this industry were optimistic. For instance, Boeing and Airbus airline companies have increased their consumer bases and annual profits over the years of their operations. Nonetheless, this positive sentiment was destroyed in 6 months, damaging everything the various companies had built in years. Increased uncertainties regarding whether the pandemic will have a long-lasting effect.
CARES Act played an essential role in helping the airline companies perform their operations under its guidance in support of air travel. According to Hotle & Mumbower (2020), services were conducted through points or cities instead of airports as per the requirements of the CARES Act. Additionally, it provided finances to support airline transportation. Covid-19 crippled U.S. air travel leading to service reduction and loss of revenue to both the government and individual firms. This was a sudden impact, and therefore, there was no plan whatsoever with any airline companies or the aviation industry to respond to this matter. But with the signing of the CARES Act, there was eased tension regarding air travel in small and large airports. Even so, the damage done by the pandemic was catastrophic. The restrictions adopted by other governments to reduce mobility reduced the aviation industry’s revenue recovery. Furthermore, since the reduction of air travel traffic is directly linked to the covid-19 pandemic’s spread, the county’s domestic and international air travel and individual firm revenue reduced. Most airline companies have borrowed money to stay afloat, which negatively affects their business as repaying these loans proves difficult due to high interests (Bouwer et al., 2021).
To recover from the covid-19 pandemic results, companies operating in the aviation industry should reevaluate their operations. This is to make small contributions to help them regain their traffic which could also propel a sound pricing logi
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