Summer airline bookings between the U.S and Europe are well below last year's pace, flight-data company Cirium suggests in an analysis.
The analysis examined bookings made between Oct. 7 of last year and Jan. 31 of this year for flights between the U.S. and Europe this July. It compared the results to bookings during the same dates a year earlier.
Cirium found that bookings from the U.S. to Europe had fallen 7.3% year over year, while bookings originating in Europe and heading to the U.S. were down 14.2%.
The data is from third-party channels, primarily OTAs and GDSs, and does not include direct airline bookings.
"Accordingly, this data is purely directional -- an indicator -- rather than hard booking data," Cirium said.
The study found the bookings were down in both directions between the U.S. and 9 Europe destinations: Amsterdam, Athens, Paris, Dublin, Rome, Frankfurt, Madrid, Munich and Milan.
Two airports showed split results. London Heathrow bookings were up 1% on Europe origin, but down 3% on U.S. origin. For Barcelona, U.S. origin bookings were up 5%, but down 26% from Europe.
Notably, the World Cup will be ongoing in the U.S. in July, with expectations that it will draw large numbers of visitors from Europe. But July travel won't be as impacted by the tournament as June will be. The tournament will be winding down by July, with less than quarter of the matches remaining. In addition, hundreds of millions of ticket applicants are awaiting word beginning this week on whether they will win the right to purchase tickets in the FIFA ticket lottery, for which entries closed last month.
In their Q4 earnings calls, American reported strong demand for Europe flights, while United said demand patterns for Europe have shifted in recent years, with other times of year drawing closer to summer peaks. Neither carrier spoke specifically about Europe flight sales for July.
Correction: Cirium found that bookings from the U.S. to Europe had fallen 7.3% year over year, while bookings originating in Europe and heading to the U.S. were down 14.2%. In a previous version of this story, we had the percentages incorrectly transposed.