Airlines are extending flight schedules because rich people want to sit on beaches during months that used to be considered "the offseason." Record heat has apparently made international travel more appealing. Nothing says "I've made sound life choices" like booking a flight to somewhere even hotter than the place you're desperately trying to escape.
The offseason no longer exists. Travel executives looked at their Q3 earnings and realized they could just keep planes in the air year-round if they convinced enough people that September in Barcelona beats September in Toledo. They were right. Turns out retail traders who got lucky on three consecutive meme stocks will absolutely pay $1,800 for a middle seat to Santorini in late October.
Airlines are calling this "maximizing lucrative international travel." The rest of us call it charging you $400 more because you're afraid of missing out on whatever your college roommate posted on Instagram last month. The business model is bulletproof. Take someone's money. Fly them somewhere crowded. Watch them take the same five photos everyone else took. Repeat.
The crowds are record-breaking too. Because nothing enhances your European vacation like waiting in line for two hours to see a painting you could've Googled in four seconds. But you can't put a Google search on social media with the caption "living my best life." You need the crowds. You need the heat. You need the proof.
This is what passes for financial news now. Airlines filled more seats. Congratulations to everyone involved. The technical analysis on this one is airtight: people with disposable income will continue disposing of it in exchange for airport anxiety and luggage fees until the oceans boil or their credit limits max out.
My only question is whether the retail traders booking these trips bothered to check if their portfolio could survive them being offline for a week, or if they just assumed their stop losses would hold while they're getting sunburned in Mykonos.
Photo by Kasy Sakamoto on Unsplash
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