US travel agency air ticket sales rose 18% year-on-year to $10.2bn in September, the Airlines Reporting Corporation (ARC) said on October 15.
Travel agency air ticket sales grew far faster than traffic. Agencies ticketed 25.7mn passenger trips, up 2% y/y, while the average domestic return economy fare settled through ARC climbed 21% to $608 and the average premium fare rose 14% to $1,562. The overall average ticket price was $669, up 2% y/y.
Domestic trips rose 2% to 16.7mn and international trips 1% to 9mn. Compared with August, sales rose 4% while trips were flat.
In the third quarter, agency sales rose 18% to $29.7bn from $25.1bn a year earlier, and trips rose 3.5% to 77.4mn. Transactions using New Distribution Capability (NDC), the airline-backed standard for direct content, made up 21.2% of ARC-settled transactions in September, with 1,264 agencies using it. The data come ahead of third-quarter airline results later this month.
“Demand for travel remains strong despite geopolitical uncertainty and inflationary pressure,” said Steve Solomon, chief commercial officer at ARC.
ARC settles more than $100bn a year in US agency air sales. Its figures cover 9,863 retail, corporate and online travel agency locations and exclude tickets bought directly from airlines.