Americans look to the road rather than the skies this summer, experts say

After weeks of lockdown, some Americans are showing the first signs of readiness to travel again. Airplanes -- the few still flying -- are growing slightly fuller, according to industry data, and the rate of people screened at airport security checkpoints has trended upwards nearly every day for the last two weeks. But the travel world is still bracing for an extended rough patch due to the coronavirus pandemic. David Calhoun, Boeing's president and CEO, said Wednesday that a "full recovery will take years, not months."<br/>American Airlines CEO Doug Parker on Wednesday warned not to expect a major increase in flying as the summer begins, and that the "recovery will be slow and demand for air travel will be suppressed for quite some time." Like the tenuous steps states are taking to re-open their economies, experts are predicting travel will make a gradual comeback. Airline industry data shows marginally more passengers are boarding planes. The average number of paying passengers on each domestic flight climbed from about 10 earlier this month to 17, according to the industry group Airlines for America, though that is partly due to airlines' aggressive efforts to cut from schedules and reduce the number of nearly empty planes flown. <br/>