US: Covid-19 resurgence threatens travel rebound

Airlines are preparing to cut thousands of workers and tap government loans as a surge of coronavirus cases and fresh government travel restrictions upend a nascent recovery in travel. After New York, New Jersey and Connecticut said last month that they would require people arriving from hot-spot states to quarantine for 14 days, United's reservations for travel within the coming month quickly began to slide, according to a presentation to United employees Monday. The drop-off has been most acute at United’s Newark, N.J., hub, where near-term net bookings were about 16% of a year earlier’s levels as of July 1, according to the presentation. Just weeks earlier, net bookings there had climbed to about a third of last year’s levels. The bookings metric, which is the difference between new reservations and cancellations, has also started to fall in other hubs, the airline told employees. That is a worrying sign for the struggling airline industry’s hopes for a recovery. Frontier Airlines also told employees this week that bookings had taken a hit, and that it is evaluating what schedule reductions it would need to make as a result.<br/>