Americans appear to be bracing for economic uncertainty, and the demand for leisure travel is tracking the decline in consumer confidence.
Getty Images | Izabela Habur
By Joanne Drilling – National Data Reporter, The Business Journals
Jun 12, 2025
Listen to this article5 min
Story Highlights
- Airlines trim summer schedules because of economic uncertainty.
- Spirit, JetBlue, WestJet and United make steepest flight cuts.
- Consumer confidence declines, affecting travel and discretionary spending.
The busy summer travel season has kicked off, but many airlines have been trimming their schedules thanks in part to economic uncertainty.
That’s according to a recent Business Journals analysis of schedule data from Cirium Inc., which found the deepest cuts nationally have been at budget airlines — although major carriers have also trimmed their schedules for the summer season.
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The analysis looked at scheduled flights for May, June and July and how airlines adjusted their schedules between April 30 and May 22.
The steepest flight cuts to summer schedules since the end of April were made by Spirit Airlines (-3,765 scheduled flights), JetBlue (-1,917), WestJet (1,188) and United Airlines (1,188).
Airports that saw the sharpest drops in scheduled flights were often clustered in the South and West. Las Vegas’ Harry Reid International took the top spot, down 619 flights since April, followed by Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson (-615), Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood (-452) and Los Angeles (-429).
Major airlines have cited a host of factors in the cuts, including declining consumer confidence, a sharp decline in European visitors and fallout from turmoil over tariffs. Others have already announced plans to cut flight schedules for the second half of the year.
Consumer confidence also affecting travel
Turmoil over tariffs and trade policy is chipping away at consumer confidence.
That’s according to new data from global decision intelligence company Morning Consult, which is partnering with American City Business Journals on the new Metropolitan Consumer Sentiment Index.
Almost 30% of respondents to Morning Consult’s consumer sentiment survey were wary of making major household purchases. That figure is up from 24% earlier this year.
The same holds true for travel.
Consulting giant Deloitte said in its 2025 travel outlook the inflationary impact of significant tariffs recently imposed by the Trump administration could be a drag on otherwise strong demand. As a tariff-heavy trade policy from President Donald Trump has taken shape since then, a late-March report issued by Deloitte said consumers have expressed less interest in discretionary spending.
“Economic uncertainty is going to affect how tightly people hold onto their wallets,” said Mallory Dumond, a supervisor at travel agency Travelmation LLC. “Discretionary spending is not going to be first-class airfare to Europe.”
In response, larger airlines are consolidating into hubs for greater efficiency, leaving smaller regional airports to lower-cost carriers.
Airlines react to ‘uncertain environment’
Several airlines have also recently adjusted their financial guidance.
Delta Air Lines recently withdrew financial guidance for the year based on “broad macro uncertainty,” slashing its first quarter profit estimate by half.
Delta won’t increase capacity in the second half of the year, either. CEO Ed Bastian told CNBC April 9 that “our economy is going to continue to lose steam” and that Delta is “acting as if we’re going into a recession.”
Ultra-low-cost carrier Frontier echoed that sentiment, cutting its full-year guidance in a regulatory filing, citing an “uncertain environment.”
But even setting aside recent volatility, many airlines had already trimmed their summer schedules for 2025 compared to their 2024 schedules.
According to The Business Journals’ analysis of Cirium data, Spirit Air Lines (19,052), Southwest Airlines (9,368) and Frontier Airlines (7,314) made the steepest cuts to summer schedules compared to a year ago.
When comparing to summer schedules from a year ago, the airports with the biggest drops in scheduled flights between May and July include Newark, New Jersey (-4,780 flights); Charlotte, North Carolina (-3,043); Fort Lauderdale, Florida (-2,288); and Oakland, California (-1,925).
Newark is a special case. In May, United Airlines cut 10% — approximately 35 flights per day — because of challenges with air traffic control at the airport.
Airports in Hawaii also saw deep cuts. Traffic in and out of Kahului (-1,261), Honolulu (-859), Kailua-Kona (-533) and Lanai (-225) has slowed within the last year.