Is the Summer of Covid Staycations Canceled?

American Airlines Group Inc. shares surged more than 35% on Thursday after the company signaled a rebound in air travel. If, like many Americans, you’re currently planning a 10-hour-plus summer road trip with the family you’ve been holed up with for months to avoid spending a fraction of the time with dozens of strangers on a plane, that may seem a bit odd.

Maybe you’re the weird ones, you might think, as you search for the Transportation Security Administration checkpoint data you’ve seen referenced in many news articles. But you're still in the majority: Sure, traffic is up from the most restrictive lockdown days of April and March, but the number of U.S. fliers on Wednesday was just 13% of what it was the same time last year. Going further down the Internet rabbit hole, you might see that American’s head of personnel said in a memo literally a week ago that the carrier would need to dramatically shrink “for the foreseeable future” and cut 30% of its management and support staff. Welcome to the world of stock trading in the coronavirus era.