What the CEOs of Delta and Booking.com Say About Airfare, Hotel Prices You'll Be Paying This Summer

This summer, high prices are expected for hotel rooms and flights as the demand for travel is not slowing.

Delta Airlines CEO Ed Bastian stated that international and domestic flights have returned to the levels before the pandemic.

Booking Holdings' CEO Glenn Fogel stated that hotel prices are "expensive" in places like New York or Miami, but consumers are willing to pay it.

The summer travel season is expected to be a hot one, with both prices and demand remaining high.

There's still an enormous amount of unmet demand dating back to the pandemic."

Booking Holdings

Last week, CEO Glenn Fogel spoke on "Squawk On The Street". "They have a lot of money saved; they want it spent."

Fogel, who runs several travel fare aggregators, including Booking.com Priceline.com and Kayak.com said that the company experienced a 26% rise in room nights compared to January 2019. He also pointed out that the TSA checkpoint numbers are within a few percentages of the numbers seen in 2019.

Fogel, citing recent trips, said that the high demand for travel has led to high prices.

He said: "I was in a New York City hotel on Thursday and Friday nights, and I thought, 'Wow! That's a ton of money.'" "I was in Miami earlier this week and it is expensive, but people will spend it."

Airline fares aren't declining either. The cost of flying was up.

17.7% year-over-year

According to the latest data, March was a particularly warm month.

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

Even as other consumer prices fell, data remained unchanged.

"[Consumers] went three years without experiencing the experiences they wanted, including last year,"

Delta Airlines

Ed Bastian, CEO of Covid, said this on "Squawk box" earlier in the week. "If you remember last summer, people had to take tests to enter the country or other places. There was also a lot uncertainty surrounding Covid. I believe we are now past all of that."

While airline stocks were hit by higher fuel and labor costs, Delta's president Glen Hauenstein stated that the airline had "record-breaking advance bookings" for the summer. The airline also reported that March cash advance bookings were up nearly 20% from 2019 levels.

Bastian stated that although domestic flights are performing well, "international is where people are clearly trying to get back the experiences they lost over the past several years."

Travel spending isn't declining

In recent quarters, travel companies have expected consumers to continue spending despite warnings from other sectors.

Amazon

Andy Jassy, CEO

Last week

On "Squawk box" it was stated that consumers were more "deal-conscious" in their efforts to save money. He said that consumers are still spending money, but they are more cautious about where they spend it.

CNBC's latest

Financial Confidence Survey

Most Americans live paycheck-to-paycheck, according to a survey conducted by Momentive in partnership. According to the survey, 70% of Americans are stressed out about their finances. A majority (52% of U.S. adults) said that their financial stress had increased since the Covid-19 pandemic started in March 2020.

Fogel said that recent concerns about the banking industry, such as instability, "can make people feel unsure of what they're going to buy or spend."

He said, however, that "in long-term, travel will continue to grow better than the GDP."

Bastian stated that, from his perspective consumers "shift out of certain goods or markets and move into the services world."

Bastian stated that the recovery time from this pandemic will be longer than anyone expected.