Shifting travel trends could change the way North American travel advisors do their business.
Air Canada is expecting record revenues for September and October as luxury and business travellers avoid the summer heat and July/August crowds.
Air Canada’s revenue for September and October is likely to break records for the two months as more premium travellers avoid the heat and summer crowds in Europe and Japan, a senior executive said.
“We anticipate that September and October will probably be the strongest September and October from a revenue perspective that the company’s ever had,” Air Canada Chief Commercial Officer Mark Galardo said in an interview with Reuters.
“We’ve seen tremendous growth in demand for people traveling business class to go to Italy, Spain, France, the Mediterranean in general, and Japan,” Galardo said. “Typically, these customers avoid the summer peak.”
Galardo said the shift among premium travellers to flying more in spring and autumn, which began two or three years ago, has accelerated, and was even showing up a little in November.
Air Canada, however, has not seen a similar change in the travel pattern of budget passengers.
“That shift to the fall season is really a story of premium,” Galardo said.
The change has already led Air Canada to add flights to European leisure destinations like Sicily and Mallorca, and Galardo said there will be more to come as the airline takes delivery of new aircraft next year. “We’re expecting that the fall and spring seasons will be significant contributors to these new routes,” he told Reuters.
As reported by Open Jaw, Virtuoso says travellers are proving “timing is the ultimate luxury,” opting to “travel later, linger longer and invest more to enjoy destinations at their best, without the crowds.”
The travel network released its latest travel trends at its 38th annual Travel Week in Las Vegas and said fall 2026 bookings are up 59% and sales are up 69%. September sales have jumped a whopping 77%, while October bookings are up 59% and November bookings and sales are both up more than 70%.
September could also overtake August as Europe’s preferred month, according to the company’s pacing data.
Virtuoso said growth is being seen across every region.
Reuters said large North American airlines such as Air Canada have increasingly built their business in recent years around premium travellers, corporate accounts and loyalty program members, betting those customers are slower to pull back when fares rise.
Higher corporate demand for fall travel, combined with premium leisure travellers wanting to avoid summer crowds and record heat, are increasing expectations for shoulder seasons that once performed more poorly than the busy summer months.
