Southwest Airlines says COVID-19 surge is causing travel cancellations

Southwest Airlines said it expects a significant drop in revenue as Americans ditch travel plans amid rising COVID-19 cases driven by the Delta variant.

The company said Wednesday it saw a “deceleration in close-in bookings and an increase in close-in trip cancellations in August 2021, which are believed to be driven by the recent rise in COVID-19 cases associated with the Delta variant,” according to a filing with Securities and Exchange Commission. Southwest said it expects August operating revenue to be down somewhere from 15 percent to 20 percent compared with the same month in 2019.