Vaccinated Seniors Are Scooping Up Plane Tickets. Here’s Where They’re Going

As more Americans get vaccinated, airline ticket sales are rising.

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There is now a growing body of evidence that Americans who are fully vaccinated are eagerly hopping back on planes — and that the trend will grow as more Americans are inoculated against Covid-19.

First, consider the recent rise in airline ticket sales. While still down significantly from 2019’s pre-pandemic levels, transactions by U.S. travel agencies have climbed steadily over the past six consecutive weeks, according to Airlines Reporting Corporation. The last week in February marked the sixth in a row in which the transaction count increased on a year-over-year basis.

For the seven days ending February 28, travel agencies sold 58.9% fewer airline tickets than for the same period in 2019. By comparison, the transaction count three weeks earlier was off 66.9% from 2019. In other words, the gap closed by about 8% in just three weeks.

Perhaps more significant, however, is who is buying these additional airline tickets. Bank of America, which has been monitoring aggregated spend across its credit and debit cards, says plane-ticket sales are being disproportionately fueled by seniors.

“What we’ve recently observed is that the older generation, 75 and above, starting about a month ago, began to accelerate spending on airfare at a rate in excess of what we saw for other generations,” Michelle Meyer, chief U.S. economist at Bank of America, told CNBC.

For now, the good news hasn’t yet reached hotels. “And, really fascinating, you don’t actually see that same level of acceleration with lodging,” said Meyer. “It’s showing up in airfare but not lodging.”

That leads travel analysts to one obvious conclusion. “People are booking trips, they are traveling, but maybe to see family at the moment rather than necessarily to go out and take vacations,” said Meyer.

“Once they feel like there’s a level of safety after getting vaccinated, I think there’s a real sense of urgency to bring families back together,” said Meyer. “And the card data is very much supporting that premise.”

Even before President Biden promised that every American adult could be vaccinated by mid-May, people were starting to see the light at the end of the pandemic tunnel.

“As you see a greater share of the country be vaccinated,” said Meyer, people will be “super anxious to go ahead and take trips ... and live in a way that they didn’t feel comfortable doing when you had a higher threat of the virus.”

Still, many vaccinated Americans have yet to plan any trips for 2021. They are still on tenterhooks, nervously waiting to get a definitive green light from health experts on whether it’s safe to travel. That kind of clarity could come early this week.

After days of delay, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is expected to release highly anticipated new guidance that provides clear recommendations on what life can look like for those fully vaccinated against Covid-19.

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