Source::AP
DALLAS
AP
Southwest Airlines cautioned Thursday that the tenuous recovery in air travel could be fading as coronavirus cases spike across the United States.
The nation’s fourth-biggest airline said after a modest rise in leisure-travel bookings from August through October, it now sees a slowdown in what were improving revenue trends for November and December.
Separately, JetBlue Airways announced it will stop blocking seats starting Jan. 8 — a bet that people feel more confident about traveling on full flights during a pandemic. The airline currently limits flights to 70% of capacity but will raise that to 85% on Dec. 2.
Airline stocks surged on Monday after Pfizer reported promising early results from a trial of a coronavirus vaccine. Delta CEO Ed Bastian called the vaccine news a “welcome glimmer of light in the darkness.” However, the stocks have retreated as new confirmed cases of COVID-19 soared over the past two weeks, reaching an average of about 127,000 in the past two weeks — the highest on record.
The report from Dallas-based Southwest added to fears that the spreading virus cases will hurt travel demand heading into Thanksgiving, a key period for airlines.
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