Thanksgiving Travel by Air Tops Forecasts

Despite dire predictions that Americans would avoid flying during one of the busiest travel periods of the year, major airlines reported better-than-expected passenger loads over the Thanksgiving holiday, buoying prospects for an industry severely bruised by the terrorist attacks.

A number of forecasts, citing continuing consumer skittishness to travel by air since Sept. 11, had predicted that airline passenger traffic for the pivotal Thanksgiving period would decline 25% to 27% compared with last Thanksgiving.

But several major airlines said Sunday that though they operated 20% fewer flights, the so-called load factor, or percentage of seats filled, was in line or slightly better than last year, as travelers overcame inconveniences of heightened security to take advantage of lower fares and last-minute deals.

“It shaped up to be a heavily traveled period,” said David Castelveter, a spokesman for US Airways. “All in all, it turned out to a pretty good Thanksgiving holiday.”

And with air passenger traffic down less than anticipated during what is considered a bellwether week for the industry, recovery for the airlines may come sooner than expected, analysts said.

Although final passenger figures won’t be available until later this week, the “preliminary numbers alone could mean a lot of comfort” for the airlines, said Michael Boyd, president of Boyd Group, an aviation consulting firm in Evergreen, Colo.

If traffic was down less than 20% compared with the more dire predictions of 25% to 27%, “we could have an economic home run in our hands,” Boyd said. “It shows the economy isn’t as bad, that people are flying again even with the hassle of increased security.”

The air passenger figures may represent another piece of good news for the economy. Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill said Sunday that he was encouraged by a 4% increase in retail sales Friday, the traditional kickoff of the holiday shopping period, and predicted that the struggling economy is headed toward a recovery. Some economists had predicted that sales the day after Thanksgiving would slump 4% or more.

“That doesn’t sound like a weak consumer,” O’Neill said in an interview on ABC’s “This Week.” “I think we will see a recovery in the U.S. economy beginning next year and growing as we move through the rest of the year.”

A recovery in passenger air travel may not mean immediate return to profitability for airlines. To draw more passengers, airlines have been cutting fares.

According to the Air Transport Assn., average air fares declined 19.2% in October. That, combined with a 23% drop in passengers, resulted in revenues plummeting 38%.

But the fact that more passengers booked flights over Thanksgiving than expected provided some cheer for what has been an otherwise dismal year for the airline industry.

A spokeswoman for United Airlines, a unit of Elk Grove Township, Ill.-based UAL Inc., said 89.2% of its seats were filled Sunday, one of the two busiest days for the nation’s second-largest airline. The load factor was similar to last year’s, although the airline has been operating 23% fewer flights since the terrorist attacks.

“Things seem to be going pretty smoothly,” said Chris Mardella, a spokeswoman for United. “We were expecting Sunday to be one of our heaviest days so we increased staffing at the airports.”

At Delta Air Lines, the nation’s third-largest carrier, the number of flights was down about 16%, but more than 87% of the seats were filled, slightly better than last year, said spokesman Kip Smith.

And at No. 4 Northwest Airlines, the load factor was about 90% on 20% fewer flights, which is “a little ahead of last year,” said spokeswoman Mary Beth Schubert.

Southwest Airlines does not provide such figures, but a spokeswoman said that though traffic was a “little weaker” than last year’s holiday, “we didn’t see it go down that much.”

“Everything is turning out to be encouraging,” said Brandy King of Southwest. A number of flights were full, she added.

That’s in stark contrast to pre-holiday predictions by the Travel Industry Assn. that the number of air travelers nationwide would hit its lowest point for Thanksgiving weekend since it started keeping records in 1994. And the Automobile Club of Southern California, the largest affiliate of AAA, had projected a 27% drop in airline bookings compared with last year.