US Airlines "Travel Intentions Among US Consumers is Broadly Resilient -..."

Research evidence excerpt

US Airlines "Travel Intentions Among US Consumers is Broadly Resilient -..."

Powered by Lab Global18 MayResearch2026ab Evidence UBS YES

US Airlines Equities

AmericasTravel Intentions Among US Consumers is

Broadly Resilient - Only Slight YoY Volume Airlines

Moderation Per UBS Survey Atul MaheswariAnalyst

atul.maheswari@ubs.com

+1-212-713 4103

US Consumer Travel Intentions moderated only slightly despite the surge in fuel Jarrod Castle, CFA

Analystprices

jarrod.castle@ubs.com

In this note, we present the key findings from US airlines' perspective from the 12th +44-20-7568 8883

UBS Evidence Lab travel intentions survey (> Access Dataset), which was undertaken

Thomas Wadewitz

during March and early April of 2026 (see here for our global survey note). The key

Analyst

takeaway was that intentions among US consumers to undertake leisure and business thomas.wadewitz@ubs.com

travel over the next 12 months remains high, but moderated slightly year-over-year with +1-212-713 6116

leisure travel intentions down -30 bps YoY to 82.8%. Intentions for business travel

moderated to 32.6% from 35.0% in Mar '25. Still, both leisure and business travel

intentions are up relative to 2-yrs ago. With respect to spend, the survey results show

that significantly more US consumers expect to increase spend in the next 12 months

than spend less on their trips - a trend that’s consistent with last year's survey.

We believe the year-over-year moderation in travel intentions this year was

likely due to higher jet fuel and other geopolitical concerns. Importantly,

despite the backdrop, travel intentions among US consumers was still above

the March'24 levels and is close to the highs over the past 9 years. We view this

a sign that travel remains a priority for US consumers. This is being manifested