ULCC - U.S. airline stocks are on watch with bookings trends weakening amid Delta variant concerns

Bank of America reports that U.S. airline bookings decelerated for the third straight week. System sales were down 53.8% in comparison to the level of 2019 for the week that ended on August 8th vs. -51.9% in the week prior. The firm notes that Southwest Airlines (NYSE:LUV) and JetBlue (NASDAQ:JBLU) both joined cruise line operators in pointing to a near term impact from the Delta COVID variant. There are also concerns on the corporate travel recovery being pushed back. "During earnings season, many carriers estimated corporate demand would be down -40% to -50% by this fall. With corporates typically booking closer in, corporate activity will likely start showing up in the September data but we believe the corporate travel recovery may be modestly pushed out given the current environment. In the most recent data, domestic tickets sold through large corporate channels is down -55.7% (vs -53.9% last week)." Sector watch

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U.S. airline stocks are on watch with bookings trends weakening amid Delta variant concerns