Record heat and crowds lead to an international travel boom in the off-season

Fed up with the heat, crowds and rising prices, more American travelers are discovering the international travel season — and airlines and hotels are struggling to make a windfall.

Flights to once-seasonal European vacation destinations begin when there is still snow on the ground in the U.S. and end when the leaves are falling, if they end at all, rather than following the traditional late spring to late summer travel seasons.

For example, American AirlinesThe journey to Edinburgh, Scotland, from New York began in March. United AirlinesThe non-stop route to Palermo, Sicily from Newark, New Jersey, will end in December and Delta AirlinesService to Rome from Minneapolis, Minnesota, will continue until January, months later than in years past.

With the surge in jet fuel this year expected to cut $100 billion into airline profits this year, according to the International Air Transport Association, it’s crucial for the industry to maximize travel trends that attract high-spending customers.

Investors are optimistic that airlines can weather the fuel hit earlier this year after they cut unprofitable or less profitable flights, and airline executives said strong demand helped them weather some — but not all — of those expenses.

Shares of Delta and United, the two most profitable American airlines, have hit record highs in recent weeks, and American shares have touched their highest level in 18 months. Airlines begin reporting second-quarter results and providing third-quarter updates this month, with Delta’s season starting on Friday.

Industry executives told CNBC that international holiday seasons were more defined. New trends are forcing them to tear up decades-old rules of the game.

“It was more complicated. There was more: good season, bad season,” Delta President Peter Carter said in an interview. “There are so many places you can go in Europe year-round and still have an amazing experience, which is why we see such good demand in Europe.”

This demand is reset when the most popular airlines are the most profitable.

“We’ve seen this tremendous, what I would call, creep of the seasons — the shoulder season blending into the full season,” Patrick Coyle, United Airlines‘The senior vice president who designs the carrier network,’ he said in an interview last month.

Shoulder season refers to the period between a destination’s peak tourist season and its off-season.

Airlines are trying to extend the season as much as possible to increase profits.

International flights to Europe generally carry more premium seating such as lie-flat pods than the smaller planes used for domestic travel, and airlines plan to expand these options further. Business class fares on some of these routes can cost $10,000 a round trip instead of less than half that on the domestic route.

Airfares have generally risen this year compared to last as airlines try to pass on as much of their increased costs as possible to customers, but there are signs that prices are moderating, especially as the industry prepares for the peak summer travel period in July.

For example, flights between the United States and Athens, Greece, on June 22 cost $988 round-trip, up from $810 a year ago but down from $1,350 two months ago, according to flight tracking site Kayak.

The increase in shoulder season and off-peak travel is forcing Delta to rethink maintenance and crew schedules, said Jeff Arender, Delta’s vice president of international network planning.

“We would never give planes to maintenance hangars, if we could avoid it, in the summer… because that’s when we made all the money,” he told CNBC. “We now do more maintenance in the summer because we want to save those planes in the fall.”

Delta is trying to “flatten out our seasonality as much as possible,” he said.

The latest challenge to regular summer travel in Europe has been the recent killer heatwave.

In late June, locals and tourists alike faced dangerous record temperatures across Europe, where air conditioning is not widespread. Misting plants were established from Warsaw, Poland, to Rome. The Paris gay pride parade, among other events, was postponed, and public alcohol consumption was briefly banned in the city.

Residents of several European cities, such as Barcelona, ​​Spain, and Venice, Italy, have also raised concerns about overcrowding during the summer months and beyond. Countries across Europe have brought record numbers of visitors.

But it’s not just aversion to heat and crowds that is changing travel patterns.

For younger generations, more flexible work policies are helping some consumers, even those with children, take trips outside the late spring and summer. Meanwhile, baby boomers are armed with piles of cash and plenty of time, giving them more flexibility to travel.

“Delta’s target demographic tends to be older and a little more affluent,” Arinder said.

United is pushing the boundaries of offseason direction.

It has extended its nonstop flight from Newark, New Jersey, to Palermo, Sicily, through December 16, instead of ending it in September, with Boeing 767 aircraft.

Sicily has long been marketed as a summer destination.

Daytime highs can regularly reach 90°F along the coast with little, if any, rain in July. However, in December, high temperatures sometimes barely reach 60 degrees on the Italian island, and rain is likely.

With lower hotel prices and fewer crowds at major attractions in the winter, United is betting that passengers will fill service three times a week even without ideal summer weather.

“I don’t think this is experimental. I think it’s a really safe bet,” United’s Coyle said.

Many coastal hotels are also closed during the winter months. For example, the Four Seasons San Domenico Palace, in Taormina, Sicily, where the second season of HBO’s White Lotus was filmed, will close mid-November through early spring.

However, hotel manager Imelda Schlako told CNBC that over the past four years the hotel has seen a “significant increase in bookings from American guests” in March, April, October and November.

“High-net-worth travelers are increasingly seeking experiences of true cultural value, and the Sicilian season is simply more suitable for offering these experiences,” she said via email, noting behind-the-scenes tours of Noto in southeastern Sicily and overnight trips to Mount Etna. A spokeswoman for the hotel said it will reopen on March 1.

Delta plans to extend its flights from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport to Catania, on the east coast of Sicily, until January 3, compared to October 24 last year. It plans to resume the track on March 8, 2027. This year, it started the track on May 1 and May 21 in 2025.

United and Delta are not alone, as airlines across the board are redeploying some of their largest aircraft to maintain service to Europe for a full year or even in the off-season.

“When airlines are looking to buy planes, they have to think about how they’re going to use that plane all year round because it’s an expensive machine,” said Brett Snyder, founder of the Cranky Flier blog and Cranky Concierge travel agency. “They know that in the summer they will have no problem sending these wide-bodies to Europe. Now they can extend that into the shoulder season.”

Based in Seattle Alaska Airlineswhich recently launched its first transatlantic service this year to London, Rome and Reykjavik, Iceland, has this in mind. President and CFO Shane Tackett told CNBC that travelers are becoming more flexible.

“A lot of people want to go see the same destinations… [and that] “It makes a lot of sense that these seasons would start to spread out,” he said. “Maybe when I was growing up, my parents weren’t thinking about taking me out of school in September, and I think parents might be a little more like, ‘Yes, let’s go somewhere fun, and you’ll catch up when you get back to school.'”

American AirlinesFor its part, some American travel seasons extend across the Atlantic.

October is “not as strong as June or July for Europe, but it’s becoming a peak month for us,” said Brian Znutins, senior vice president of network planning at the carrier.

But he said America doesn’t want to push planes away from its track record for those seeking skiing and winter sun.

“I’m not going to mince words: January and February are still very off-peak. I’d hate for anyone to come along and say they’re good months, they’re less off-peak than they used to be,” he said.

Some travelers split the difference.

Atul Mehta, a financial executive based in Chicago, said he will take his family to Portugal this summer shortly before school resumes, but when he visits his family in Bahrain in the winter, “we took them out of school,” he said.