U.S. Airline Web Traffic Grew 10% in Q1, But Declined 3% in March

Q1 saw 10% growth, but visits to airline websites are slowing, a sign that a dip in demand might be on the horizon. Among major airlines, United, and Delta saw growth, while American and Southwest declined.

Key takeaways

• Aggregated web traffic to the ten largest US airlines rose 10% in Q1, year-over-year, but declined 3% in March,  based on Similarweb estimates of traffic from within the US. March’s decline followed a 9% rise in Feb. and a 25% rise in January.
• Five of the ten largest US airlines saw web traffic declines in March, with the largest decline at Allegiant, which saw a 16% drop, followed by Southwest (-11%) and American (-9%). Among gainers, United and Frontier both saw a 10% rise in visits, followed by 9% growth at Spirit. Delta saw a 3% rise in visits.
• Southwest still leads in share of traffic with 21% share, followed by American at 20%, Delta at 17%, and United at 16%. United gained 240 basis points of market share over peers in March,  and Delta gained 170 basis points, while Southwest lost 100 basis points of traffic and American dropped 60 basis points.

Similarweb’s monthly market share report shows changes in web traffic and share of traffic among ten U.S. airlines.

March web traffic growth shows demand could be declining

A look at web traffic for the month of March to the ten largest U.S. airlines shows that after the year got off to a strong start in January with 25% growth, year-over-year, and February saw 9% growth, March actually saw a decline dropping 3%. For the quarter, Q1 grew 10%, but those gains were front-end loading with most of the growth occurring in January. This could be the start of signs of slowing demand.

Five of ten peers saw year-over-year traffic declines in March, with the worst being Allegiant, which saw a 16% drop, followed by Southwest (-11%) and American (-9%). Among gainers, United and Frontier both saw a 10% rise in visits, followed by 9% growth at Spirit. Delta saw a 3% rise in visits. JetBlue was up 0.04%, which you can’t really pick out in the below chart.

United, Delta gained market share at the expense of American and Southwest

Using web traffic as a proxy for market share, you can see that United and Delta both gained share in the month of March, with United up 2.4% and Delta rising by 1.7%, while Southwest lost one percentage point versus the group and American lost 60 basis points of share., You can see relative changes in the chart below. Alaska and Hawaiian maintained the same share as last year, so they do not show up on the chart.

Southwest leads US carriers in share of traffic, followed by American

Southwest Airlines remains the largest US airline in terms of share of web traffic, with a 21% share among the ten peers we looked at in this report. American was second, at 20%, followed by Delta (17%) and United (16%). There was a large lag between these four major airlines and the next largest peer, JetBlue, which had a 7% share of traffic, followed by Spirit (5%) Frontier (5%), Alaska (5%), Allegiant (3%), and Hawaiian (1%).

Publicly traded companies mentioned in this report include American Airlines Group (NASDAQ:AAL), Alaska Air Group (NYSE: ALK), Allegiant Travel Company (NASDAQ:ALGT), Delta Air Lines (NYSE:DAL), Frontier Group Holdings (NASDAQ:ULCC), Hawaiian Holdings (NASDAQ:HA), JetBlue Airways Corp. (NASDAQ:JBLU), Southwest Airlines (NASDAQ:LUV), Spirit Airlines (NASDAQ:SAVE) and United AIrlines Holdings (NASDAQ:UAL).

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Report By: Jim Corridore, Senior Insights Manager

Methodology

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by Jim Corridore

Senior Analyst

Jim provides insights across multiple sectors. With 30 years on Wall Street and numerous awards for stock-picking, he is a SUNY Albany graduate.