• In recent earnings calls, several airlines have mentioned dips to travel involving the US.
• This was only partly true for Air France-KLM, which noted a rise in flights from the US to Europe.
• British Airways' parent, IAG, says it is seeing "softness" in flights to the US.

Europeans may be losing interest in visiting the US, but Americans still seem keen on flying transatlantic, at least for now.

As airlines have reported quarterly earnings over the past few weeks, several have highlighted dips in bookings to the US while at the same time seeing year-over-year increases in bookings to other regions — including from the US to Europe.

Air France-KLM, Europe's second-largest airline company by revenue, on April 30 said bookings on flights from Europe to the US in May and June were down 2.4% compared with the same period last year while those in the opposite direction had risen 2.1%.

Europeans instead seem to be looking anywhere else for their summer travels. The airline group's bookings from Europe to the rest of the world were up 9.2%, with a 7.3% increase the other way.

"Europe is holding up against the turmoil with inbound traffic from both the United States and the rest of the world showing growth compared to last year," CEO Ben Smith said on an earnings call.

Germany's Lufthansa Group, Europe's biggest airline company by revenue, is seeing similar trends.

CEO Carsten Spohr said on an April 29 earnings call that Americans were more willing to spend than Europeans but that the group was still seeing fewer bookings in the US.

"Bookings have slightly softened in the US," he said, "destinations to and from."

This week, IAG, the parent company of British Airways, released its first-quarter results. The company reported strong overall performance, with revenue growing by 9.6% compared with the same period last year, but it too mentioned US-related frailty.

CEO Luis Gallego said that while demand for travel in Latin America and Europe continued to be "strong," the company had been "mitigating some recent softness in US point-of-sale economy leisure" with strong sales in premium cabins.

"We continue to see resilient demand for air travel across all our markets, particularly in the premium cabins and despite the macroeconomic uncertainty," Gallego said.

Tighter immigration rules in the US in particular are thought to have made some European travelers wary.

In an interview with Bloomberg in early April, the CEO of the hospitality firm Accor spoke of declining bookings he attributed to a "bad buzz," with widely publicized reports of Europeans being turned away at the US border.

For example, France's higher-education minister told Agence France-Presse that a scientist was denied entry to the US after he was found to have sent texts criticizing Donald Trump.

The US president's tariff plan has also caused economic uncertainty. Leisure travel is one of the first things to suffer in such cases because it's nonessential and is relatively easy for consumers to forgo.

At the same time, people have also been more willing to pay for experiences since the pandemic, and premium cabins for leisure travel have been more resilient.

But with the economic uncertainty set to continue and the impact of tariffs yet to be fully realized, some analysts think the worst is yet to come for airlines.

"At the moment, the US carriers and Lufthansa have pointed towards resilient premium leisure demand," Andrew Lobbenberg, a Barclays analyst, wrote in a note on April 29. "We continue to think this will weaken due to wealth effects."

In a separate note a day later, he added that Barclays analysts were "bearish" for transatlantic routes.

Correction: May 9, 2025 — An earlier version of this story misstated some of the dates involved. Air France-KLM reported its earnings on April 30, not this past Wednesday, while Lufthansa Group reported its earnings on April 29, not this past Tuesday. Andrew Lobbenberg similarly published his note on April 29.