Major airlines in the United States have pulled back their 2025 economic outlooks as they warn of low sales and low demand for domestic travel.
Delta Air Lines, Southwest Airlines, and American Airlines personnel have said the economic outlook for the rest of 2025 is too uncertain to make predictions because of President Donald Trump’s unpredictable tariff policy. The major airlines all cited lower sales among economy-class leisure travelers.
“We came off a strong fourth quarter, saw decent business in January, and really domestic leisure travel fell off considerably as we went into the February time frame,” American Airlines CEO Robert Isom told CNBC last week.
An American Airlines spokesperson said it would give an update on its full-year guidance “as the economic outlook becomes clearer.”
A spokesperson for Southwest Airlines said it would cut its flight schedule for the second half of the year due to lower demand. The airline could not confirm its 2025 and 2026 outlooks for earnings before interest and taxes, given “current macroeconomic uncertainty.”
Low-cost Frontier Airlines and Alaska Airlines also pulled their 2025 outlooks.
The decline in demand for flights has resulted in lower costs. Airfare prices dropped 5.3% from March 2024 to March 2025, according to the latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
WHITE HOUSE TURBULENCE SEEPS INTO SECOND TRUMP TERM
U.S.-based customers are still flying in large numbers to overseas destinations, all while international travel into the U.S. has plummeted.
Between January and March, 7.1 million visitors entered the U.S. from abroad, a 3.3% decline from the first three months of 2024, marking the sharpest decrease in travel since the COVID-19 pandemic.
