The major U.S. carriers' second-quarter earnings results included one common thread: Corporate travel revenue "surged" during the April-through-June period, despite higher fuel surcharges, increased airfares and continued geopolitical uncertainty.
Though Delta Air Lines didn't specify the growth rate for overall managed corporate revenue beyond saying it was up by a double-digit percentage year over year, its domestic corporate revenue increased 20 percent for the period, with some markets reaching 30 percent. For United Airlines, contracted business revenue was up 27 percent, with bookings up 30 percent. American Airlines reported a 26 percent increase versus Q2 2025 for managed corporate revenue. Southwest Airlines' managed business revenue grew 30 percent, breaking its record for the segment established just one quarter prior, while Alaska Airlines matched Southwest's growth rate for its managed corporate revenue.
United even acknowledged that it is adjusting its "revenue management posture" to save more seats for close-in business demand, chief commercial officer Andrew Nocella said.
Still, much of the Q2 spike in corporate revenue was due to higher fares. Carriers offered little detail on changes to the volume of business travelers, other than the acknowledgement by Delta chief commercial officer Joe Esposito that the carrier in Q2 had seen "some improvement in [corporate] passengers."
Higher Airfares
The other constant among the Q2 calls was the high price of jet fuel cutting into profits. But some carriers noted that they were able to recapture about 50 percent of those costs, with projections of having the full cost of elevated fuel prices recaptured by the end of 2026 or early 2027. Delta, United, Southwest and JetBlue each noted their ability to recapture fuel costs this past quarter.
How are they doing that? With increased fuel surcharges, higher airfares and reduced capacity. No surprises there.
Even if volatile fuel prices stabilize, don't expect those higher surcharges and airfares to fall all at once. The Global Business Travel Association's latest forecast, released this week in conjunction with travel management company Altour, indicated that though airfare increases were beginning to ease, 2026 global airfares still are projected to increase 4.7 percent year over year.
However, multiple executives noted that airfares are still below 2019 levels, when inflation is factored in.
"Even with recent fare increases, airfares remain 10 to 15 points below overall inflation since Covid," Delta CEO Ed Bastian said. "The price of air travel remains a bargain," American CEO Robert Isom concurred.
United CEO Scott Kirby stated that "fares still remain 13 percent lower in real terms compared to pre-pandemic," while the carrier's CFO, Mike Leskinen, added that "if you zoom out to consider price inflation for travel over the last 10 and 20 years, airfare stands out as a tremendous value."
JetBlue president Marty St. George also noted that "air travel is still an incredibly good value. Airfares started at '26 down 30 percent from where they were in 2019," he said. "You will not find any other major commodity in this economy that has that much decline in their real pricing."
But how long will that last? Maybe for a while. The annual U.S. inflation rate in June declined to 3.5 percent, down from 4.2 percent in May. It also was the first decline in five months.
Premium Demand, Segmentation
Relatively lower airfares compared with those from 2019 is one reason executives are bullish that revenue outlooks fueled by continued demand remain "strong" and "resilient." Another is the seemingly endless supply of demand for premium products—which has become a mantra from executives for the past few years.
Some of that demand could be moving back to economy, however. The GBTA forecast suggested that "business travelers are trading down as fares rise and travel managers work to extend constrained travel budgets."
Still, carriers are trying to optimize their premium revenue by further segmenting premium cabins, with at least three major U.S. airlines now offering "basic" premium seats. Delta started the trend in November 2025 by creating three options for its Comfort cabin— Basic, Classic and Extra—then did the same earlier in July for First and Delta One. United in April announced its premium segmentation for Polaris and Premium Plus cabins, while JetBlue earlier this week segmented all its cabins—including its new BlueFirst cabin, which hasn't been put into service yet—to offer Base, Standard or Flex options for each.
The airlines couched the changes as giving customers more choice, but what these changes really do is nudge customers to select the higher-priced options within those premium cabins because they don't want to risk losing money if they need to cancel or make a change and want free checked baggage, as many loyalty points as possible or maybe an upgrade—in other words, flexibility. But is that really the case?
"These offerings increase flexibility for customers while driving improved revenue performance," Delta's Esposito said. United's Nocella said that "the buy-up rate to the standard premium Polaris ticket is actually—I'm not going to give you the number, but the number is high," he said. "It's higher than I expected by a lot. … We're really far down this segmentation path, but there's a lot more path ahead of us."
Many corporate travel programs block basic main cabin fares. It remains to be seen if they will do the same for the premium cabins, but Esposito also noted that basic products, "even in the premium cabins, are restrictive, and that doesn't really work with our corporate customers."