Air traveler numbers hit highest level since March: TSA

Yahoo Finance’s Emily McCormick joins Kristin Myers to discuss the surge in airline stocks as TSA numbers hit a record high amid the pandemic.

Video Transcript

KRISTIN MYERS: Well, we're also seeing a lot more folks traveling. And that, of course, is causing airline stocks to surge today. Looking over at United, they're up about 2% right now. Delta, however, up over 4%.

Carnival Cruise Lines also doing well. So also more positive news for the cruise line industry, as more folks continue to travel. Norwegian Cruise Lines up over 7 and 1/2% right now.

Well, that surge in airlines, of course, is coming as figures from the TSA show that more people are flying. So for more on this, we're joined now by Emily McCormick. Hey, Emily.

EMILY MCCORMICK: Hi, Kristin. And as you mentioned, we are looking at more positive data from the TSA with regard to passenger throughput. So the TSA announced passenger throughput of more than 831,000 travelers on Sunday. That was the highest level since March 17-- so essentially, the highest number of passengers that we've seen during this pandemic period here in the US.

Taking a look at this data, it has been on an upward trend over the past several weeks, albeit with some choppiness in individual days. But overall, definitely higher than the lows that we saw in mid-April when the number of passengers going through checkpoints bottomed at fewer than 90,000.

Still, with that number of 831,000 or so as of Sunday, that was still down nearly 70% versus what we saw during the comparable day last year. So still a long way to go until we're back at the levels that we saw year over year, but at least we are seeing a more positive trend line over the past couple of months.

Now again, we are seeing airlines, along with other travel stocks-- the cruise lines, as well as lodging companies, as you highlighted-- getting a boost from this data today, as well as that incrementally more positive news that we have on the vaccine front.

Taking a look at these stocks, you highlighted some of the intraday moves. | at the highs of the session earlier, we did see United up more than 6%, American Airlines up about 8%, and Delta up as much as 5%, Kristin.

KRISTIN MYERS: Hey, Emily. So keeping the trend here on travel, you know, not all good news, however. Looking over at hotels, Intercontinental-- they're the owner of Holiday Inn-- they're said to be cutting jobs, correct?

EMILY MCCORMICK: That's right, Kristin. So Intercontinental hotels did announce today during their earnings call that they would be cutting about 10% of their jobs at the corporate level. That's something that they'd already announced internally earlier this summer. But at least they did suggest that the worst of the pandemic may be behind their company and the broader travel industry.

So one of the things that they highlighted was that revenue per available room declined by about 75% in the second quarter. That improved to a decline of about 58% in July, with global occupancy hitting 45%. That was up from a low point of just 20% back in April.

So again, seeing that slightly more upbeat outlook with that forward guidance, that sort of sentiment that things are going to be improving off the lows that we saw earlier this year, giving that company, as well as these travel stocks, a bit of a boost.

One of the things that CEO Keith Barr actually said during a Bloomberg TV interview earlier today too is that he expects that demand in 2021 to 2023 will actually look more like 2019 than it does 2020. So potentially some green shoots here on the horizon for the hotel industry, Krisitn.

KRISTIN MYERS: All right. Yahoo Finance's Emily McCormick. Thanks so much, Emily.