US airlines hope Hawaii is route to recovery

This summer US airlines added more seats on planes bound for Hawaii than to any other state, betting that Americans sick of isolation will need a holiday. Scheduled airline capacity to the Pacific islands grew 185% between June and September. Airlines plan to have 1.4m seats — filled, they hope — arrive in the state next month, according to data from aviation consultancy OAG. The increased capacity to the tropical destination is part of a larger trend of leisure travel recovering, albeit still at a fraction of 2019 levels, while business travel remains in the doldrums. United Airlines said on Wednesday that it would add 28 nonstop flights to Florida this winter because of customer demand, while Southwest tries to lure skiers with more flights to Steamboat Springs, Colorado. The travel reservation app TripIt showed that for the forthcoming Labor Day weekend, destinations in Mexico, Florida and Hawaii climbed the most compared with the same US holiday weekend in 2019. “There’s more of a focus on those leisure destinations post-Covid because that’s where the demand is,” said Savanthi Syth, an analyst at Raymond James. Travellers heading to beaches or to outdoor destinations have “a perception that you can social distance”, she added.<br/>