U.S. Could Have Best Travel Season since 9/11 Attacks

04 June 2004 6:00am

A larger amount of Americans is expected to start trickling out overseas and spend more cash this summer, thus putting behind fears of leaving their homes caused by the 9/11 terrorist attacks back in 2001, the Travel Industry Association of America (TIA) reported today in a poll.

"For the first time in years, summertime travel will be off to a good start and we hope that pace will remain until August," said Suzanne Cook, vice president of research for TIA.

Passenger volumes in U.S. airports will grow 5 percent this summer compared to the same period of time last year.

Execs from Orbitz (ORBZ.O), the third-largest travel dot-com in the U.S., noted the summer of 2004 could post put numbers on the board as good as the figures chalked up by the industry prior to 9/11.

"The economy has made some progress this year and people are therefore more positive, less frightened and more willing to travel," Orbitz spokeswomen Kendra Thornton averred.

American travelers shelled out an average $1,172 per trip in the summer of 2001. That figure took a slight dip the following year and finished at $1,066, only to fall deeper to $1,055 per journey in 2003. This summer, however, TIA hopes Americans will open up their wallets and fork over $1,101 per trek.

According to travel logbooks, Americans made 200 million air trips in 2000, less than 198 million in 2001, 182.5 million in 2002 and just 176.7 million last year. Estimates put the number of flights this year in 184.5 million.

And in-advance reservations are also expected to be bigger than in 2003. "I think people are eager to make those vacation trips they´d put off in the past couple of years," Mrs. Thornton added.

The number of flights in America´s nine major airports, including Chicago´s O´Hare -the busiest air terminal coast to coast- is already surpassing the figures achieved before 9/11, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said.

Another half a dozen busy airports will go pre-9/11 levels one better this summer, the FAA concludes.