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Airlines, hotels, rental car companies and booking sites all
reported a surge in demand for their services in the latest
batch of company earnings. But at the same time. many of those
companies face a tight labor market and limited volume as they
scramble to restart and expand operations after more than two
years of depressed demand due to the pandemic.
Tripadvisor said travelers should expect inflation to impact all
areas of travel purchases in 2022, and booking now versus later
can mean locking in better prices.
Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc plans to continue to reprice hotel
rooms "every minute of the day" to limit the impact inflation
has on its business, CEO Christopher Nassetta told investors on
Tuesday.
"As demand has picked up, we have certainly been able to do that
and we expect that we will continue to be able to do that," he
said on the company's earnings call.
Hilton's average daily rates in the United States were 36.4%
higher in the first quarter of 2022 compared to the same period
in 2021. Average daily rates across hotel companies in the U.S.
were up approximately 37.7% in the first quarter of 2022 when
compared to the same period in 2021, according to hotel industry
data from Smith Travel Research Inc.
The price of flights this summer are also trending higher,
according to travel search engine Skyscanner. Round trip flights
within the U.S. will cost $302 per traveler on average, which is
3% higher during the same period pre-pandemic. Long and
ultra-long-haul international flights are up to 20% higher than
2019, costing on average $797 and $1182 respectively.
Other segments within the travel industry are facing supply
constraints and labor shortages as leisure and business
travelers also return.
Car rental firm Hertz Global Holdings reported it averaged about
481,000 vehicles during the first quarter of 2022 compared to a
pre-pandemic level of approximately 700,000 vehicles.
"There's little question that as demand moves even higher in the
summer season, you'll see [utilization] stress further," said
Hertz CEO Stephen Scherr, adding that the available supply of
vehicles is limited and needs to be managed very carefully.
Staffing woes have also marred operations in recent weeks at
carriers such as Alaska Airlines and JetBlue, forcing them to
cut summer schedules to avoid further disruption.
Travel booking app Hopper said domestic airlines are currently
scheduled to operate at between 75% to 95% of their 2019 summer
capacity from May through August.
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) continues to
host hiring events in an effort to increase staff ahead of
anticipated summer travel and the return to pre-pandemic
passenger volumes, according to a statement from the agency.
The TSA in March said the return of (fiscal year) 2019 passenger
traffic levels would return in (fiscal year) 2022, a year
earlier than previously projected and an increase in staff will
help ensure that the "traveling public does not experience
excessive wait times."
(Reporting by Doyinsola Oladipo, Editing by Anna Driver and
Diane Craft)
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