Air ticket sales by U.S. travel agencies improved last week for the third time in four weeks.
For the week ending Aug. 9, sales were off 77% compared with the same week in 2019, according to ARC. While still dismal, that's an improvement from the week ending Aug. 2, when sales were off 79.1%.
Agency channel ticket sales had improved steadily from mid-April through mid-June, before the summer spike in new Covid-19 derailed the growth.
Transactions hit bottom in the week ending April 12, according to ARC, when they were down 93.8% year-over-year. They improved to a deficit of 75.2% for the week of June 14, then fell back to being down more than 80% for two consecutive weeks in mid-July.
ARC data over the past few weeks suggests that air travel demand has stagnated for the time being at between 20% and 25% of last year's level.
Tickets prices are also down. The value of airfares sold by U.S. travel agencies was off 86.5% for the week ending Aug. 9.