United Airlines reported a 25% increase in demand for flights to Lisbon, Portugal, where Swift is performing for her “Eras Tour,” compared to last summer. This trend is expected to continue in the coming months as fans travel to Europe for cheaper concert tickets than the US.
Bookings for her upcoming performances in other European locations, including Madrid, Edinburgh, and Dublin, are also increasing, according to a United official.
United’s flights to Milan and Munich for Swift’s gigs in July have seen the greatest surge in demand, with upwards of 45% more passengers than last year.
All of these cities are served by the airline from its East Coast hubs at Newark and Dulles, with extra connections to San Francisco, Denver, Chicago’s O’Hare, and Houston.
Delta Air Lines informed CNN that demand for flights to her European tour is rising. The airline is preparing for its largest-ever foreign summer schedule, adding new destinations and resuming services that were cut due to the pandemic.
Both airlines anticipate record-breaking summer travel overall. Delta and United said they will fly almost 3 million people over Memorial Day weekend, which runs from Thursday to Monday, a 5% increase over last year.
Airlines for America, a group representing major US airlines, forecasts record numbers of passengers this summer, with carriers anticipated to fly 270 million, up 6% from the previous year.
The surge in bookings is only another evidence of “Swiftonomics,” the pop star’s ability to influence the economies of the cities and nations she visits on her massive global tour.
According to a recent Barclays report, over 1 million Swifties will attend the superstar’s shows in the United Kingdom later this summer, with the average fan spending £642 ($810) on travel, accommodation, and other expenses, injecting a total of £755 million ($953 million) into the economy.
“When it comes to cultural icons like Taylor Swift — as we saw with Elvis and Beatlemania in the 1950s and 1960s — supporters have such a strong connection to the artist and the rest of the fandom that the desire to spend becomes even more powerful,” Dr. Peter Brooks, chief behavioral scientist at Barclays, said in the report.