Delta Air Lines says it expects lower travel demand around the election. Is that actually a thing?

On Thursday, Delta Air Lines announced that it expects a minor revenue hit in the fourth quarter due to the upcoming presidential election, and lower demand for travel before and after.

The Atlanta-based carrier expects that the decline will occur during the two weeks around the November 5 election between Vice President Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump, then pick back up in the following weeks for the holiday season.

“We anticipate a one-point impact to total unit revenue from reduced travel demand around the election,” the airline’s president, Glen Hauenstein, said in an earnings release. 

Delta’s third-quarter earnings revealed a fall of 26%. This is due in part to its struggle overcoming the CrowdStrike technology outage this past summer that caused the cancellation of thousands of flights.

Delta CEO Ed Bastian told CNBC, “We do anticipate seeing a little choppiness around the election, which we’ve seen in past national elections.” He explained that consumers often pause their investment decisions until after the election. 

This begs the question: Do election years normally see a drop in travel? 

Although other airlines haven’t yet raised concerns of fourth-quarter-revenue declines due to the election, it seems there is some truth in Delta’s claims.  

Looking back at 2020, although it was a pandemic year, travel agencies reflected on their booking trends and noticed a decrease every four years. ThePrint spoke with Dan Sherman, chief marketing officer of Ski.com, who said that sales during election years can be knocked down more than 30% when compared to a normal year.   

Virtuoso, an online travel agency network, also tested this theory in 2019. According to Travel Weekly, Virtuoso analyzed sales data for an election year versus other years and saw a connection between election years and travel slowdowns. Sales in the United States on average increased 14.3% in the year prior to an election, but only 2.9% during an election year.  

Many people during election years are worried about personal finances and the possibility of market fluctuation when candidates change offices, Steven Gould, founder of the Travel Advisor Resource Center (TARC), told TravelAge West. At the same time, a survey of travel advisors published in March found that 68% did not expect the election to impact people’s travel plans—at least, that’s how they were feeling while sales were up for big events such as the Olympics.

Either way, Delta predicts a very successful fourth quarter due to improved pricing power and good holiday travel bookings.