Off-season overseas travel boom accelerates due to record heat and crowds

Tired of the heat, crowds and high prices, more U.S. travelers are heading into the off-season for international travel, leaving airlines and hotels vying for a windfall.

Rather than following the traditional late spring to late summer travel season, flights to once seasonal European vacation destinations now depart when there’s still snow on the ground in the United States and end when the leaves are falling, if at all.

for example, american airlinesFlights from New York to Edinburgh, Scotland, began in March. united airlinesDirect flights from Newark, New Jersey to Palermo, Sicily will end in December. delta airlinesFlights from Minneapolis, Minnesota to Rome will end in January, several months later than usual.

Rising jet fuel prices are expected to cut airline profits by $100 billion this year, according to the International Air Transport Association, which says it’s important for the industry to make the most of travel trends that attract big-spending customers.

Investors are optimistic that airlines can weather the hit in fuel costs that began earlier this year as they cut unprofitable and unprofitable flights, and airline executives say strong demand has allowed them to pass on some, but not all, of the costs.

Shares of Delta Air Lines and United Airlines, two of the most profitable U.S. airlines, have each hit record highs in recent weeks, while American Airlines’ stock has hit an 18-month high. Airlines begin reporting second-quarter earnings and providing third-quarter updates this month, with Delta Air Lines starting its season on Friday.

Industry executives told CNBC that overseas holiday seasons used to be more defined. New trends are forcing them to break with decades-old strategies.

“It used to be more lumpy. There were more good seasons and more bad seasons,” Delta President Peter Carter said in an interview. “There are so many places in Europe that you can go to all year round and still have great experiences, which is why we are seeing such high demand for Europe.”

At a time when airlines are making money, demand is being redefined.

“We’ve seen this massive seasonal shift, with shoulder season blending into a full season,” Patrick Quayle said. united airlines” said the carrier’s senior vice president of network design in an interview last month.

Shoulder season refers to the period between a destination’s peak tourist season and off-season.

Airlines are trying to extend the season as much as possible to increase profits.

International flights to Europe typically carry more premium seats like lie-flat pods than smaller jets used for domestic travel, and airlines plan to expand these options even further. On some routes, business class fares are no more than half the price of domestic flights, and can cost as much as $10,000 round-trip.

Overall airfares are higher this year compared to last year as airlines seek to pass on rising costs to customers as much as possible, but there are signs that prices are calming, especially as the airline industry prepares for the peak summer travel season to pass in July.

For example, a round-trip ticket between the United States and Athens, Greece, on June 22 cost $988, up from $810 last year but down from $1,350 two months ago, according to flight tracking site Kayak.

Jeff Allinder, Delta Air Lines’ vice president of international network planning, said the shoulder season and increased off-peak travel are forcing the airline to rethink maintenance and crew schedules.

“If we could avoid the summer, we would never give the aircraft to a maintenance shop, because that’s where we made all the money,” he told CNBC. “We want to have these planes ready for the fall, so we’re currently doing more maintenance in the summer.”

He said Delta is trying to “flatten the seasonality as much as possible.”

The latest challenge to our usual summer trip to Europe was the recent deadly heatwave.

In late June, locals and tourists alike faced dangerous, record-breaking temperatures across Europe, where air conditioning is not widely available. Mist stations were installed from Warsaw, Poland to Rome. Events such as Paris’ LGBTQ+ Pride march have been postponed, and public drinking has been temporarily banned in the city.

Residents in many European cities, including Barcelona, ​​Spain and Venice, Italy, have also expressed concerns about overcrowding after the peak summer period. European countries are receiving record numbers of tourists.

But it’s not just an aversion to heat and crowds that is leading to changes in travel patterns.

For younger generations, more flexible labor policies are allowing some consumers to travel outside of late spring and summer, even those with children. Baby boomers, on the other hand, are armed with large amounts of cash and plenty of time, which allows them to travel more flexibly.

“Delta’s target demographic tends to be a little older and a little more affluent,” Allinder said.

United are pushing the limits of off-season trends.

Boeing 767 flights from Newark, New Jersey to Palermo, Sicily have been extended to December 16th instead of ending in September.

Sicily has long been touted as a summer destination.

There is little rain in July, and daytime highs often reach 90 degrees Fahrenheit along the coast. However, in December, highs on the Italian island can reach just under 60 degrees and rain is more likely.

United Airlines is betting that travelers will fill its three weekly flights even without ideal summer weather, as winter brings lower hotel prices and less crowds at major tourist spots.

“I don’t think it’s that experimental. I think it’s a really safe bet,” United’s Quayle said.

Many of the hotels along the coast are also closed during the winter. For example, Four Seasons’ San Domenico Palace in Taormina, Sicily, where Season 2 of HBO’s “The White Lotus” was filmed, will close from mid-November to early spring.

However, manager Imelda Schlak told CNBC that the hotel has seen a “significant increase in bookings from American guests” in March, April, October and November over the past four years.

“Affluent travelers are increasingly seeking experiences with authentic cultural currency, and Sicily’s Shoulder Season is well-positioned to provide just that,” she said in an email, citing behind-the-scenes tours of Noto in southeastern Sicily and nighttime trips to Mount Etna. The hotel is scheduled to reopen on March 1, a spokesperson said.

Delta Air Lines plans to extend its service from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport to Catania on Sicily’s east coast from October 24 of last year to January 3. The route is scheduled to reopen on March 8, 2027, and this year the route was launched on May 1 and May 21, 2025.

Airlines across the board, not just United and Delta, are redeploying some of their largest fleets to maintain service to Europe throughout the year and into the off-season.

“When airlines are looking to buy an aircraft, they have to think, ‘This is an expensive machine, so how are we going to use this plane year-round?'” said Brett Snyder, founder of the blog Cranky Flyer and travel agency Cranky Concierge. “They know they have no problem sending these widebodies to Europe in the summer, and now they can extend that even further into the shoulder season.”

Seattle based alaska airlinesIt is with this in mind that this year it recently debuted its first service across the Atlantic to London, Rome and Reykjavik, Iceland. Shane Tackett, president and chief financial officer, told CNBC that travelers have more flexibility.

“A lot of people want to go see the same destinations… (and it’s) very logical for those seasons to start spreading out,” he said. “When I was a kid, my parents probably never thought of pulling me out of school in September. Maybe they were more like, ‘Yeah, let’s go somewhere fun, and when we get home, we’ll catch up on school.'”

american airlinesis extending some of the U.S. transatlantic travel seasons.

October “isn’t as strong as June or July for Europe, but it’s becoming a peak month for us,” said Brian Znotins, the company’s senior vice president of network planning.

But American Airlines doesn’t want to deviate too much from the aircraft’s track record to cater to vacationers looking to ski or sunbathe in the winter, he said.

“I’m not going to mince words. January and February are still very slow months. I don’t want anyone to come back and say it’s a good month, it’s just less slow than before,” he said.

Some travelers split the difference.

Atul Mehta, a Chicago-based financial executive, said he planned to take his family to Portugal this summer shortly before school resumed, but “I pulled them out of school” when he visited family in Bahrain in the winter.