Air travel distribution and intelligence provider Airlines Reporting Corp. (ARC) today released its collected data report on net sales from ARC-accredited travel agencies last month. It revealed that July 2021 airline ticket sales increased by 947 percent over July 2020, and was the second consecutive month this year in which sales totaled more than $4 billion.
Despite that, July 2021 actually constituted the first month in which overall sales decreased after seven sequential months of growth. But, ARC said that this follows a typical seasonal pattern of sales falling between June and July every year.
Month over month, July 2021 data revealed:
-Total passenger trips down by four percent
-U.S. domestic trips down by two percent
-International trips down by 10 percent
"We typically see a slowdown in new air ticket sales during the summer months as consumers finish their summer vacation travel," said Chuck Thackston, ARC's managing director of data science and research. "While airlines and organizations watch the new COVID-19 variants to determine the impact on travel, we anticipate new bookings and ticket sales to follow a similar pattern to prior years."
The data from July 2021 also showed:
- The total number of passenger trips settled by ARC rose 229 percent year over year from 5.1 million to 16.8 million.
-U.S. domestic passenger trips increased 230 percent, while international trips grew 226 percent year over year.
-Overall, U.S. domestic passenger trips totaled 12.1 million, while international trips totaled 4.7 million.
-The average U.S. round-trip ticket price increased to $458, up from $321 in July 2020.
-Electronic Miscellaneous Document (EMD) sales jumped 311 percent to $7,159,107, while EMD transactions grew 366 percent to $151,578. EMD refers to airlines' ancillary revenue from electronic sales and transactions besides tickets.
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