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Investing.com – Shares of United Airlines (NASDAQ:UAL), American Airlines (NASDAQ:AAL) and other U.S.-based carriers traded higher in Monday’s premarket as the transatlantic route opened to flights into the U.S. after more than a year of being shut due to the pandemic.
United traded 2.3% higher while American and Delta Air (NYSE:DAL) were up just short of 2% each. JetBlue (NASDAQ:JBLU), a recent entrant to the world’s busiest route, was up just over 1%.
All major airlines have committed to adding more planes and capacity to meet the demand as the holiday season nears. Reaching pre-pandemic levels on those routes will take time, though: fourth-quarter capacity is seen down around 23% compared to the same period in 2019, United said last month.
The traffic is expected to only pick up slowly as doors are effectively open only for the fully vaccinated.
Airlines were one of the sectors worst hit by the pandemic as travel restrictions and testing requirements – which were frequently implemented in patchy and ad-hoc ways by various countries – kept passengers away.
The emergence of the Delta variant in the third quarter also temporarily slowed an incipient recovery in domestic travel.
