An interesting turn of events: European demand for air travel is crashing in the West but growing in the East. What does this mean for transatlantic travel this summer to the U.S.?

A Tale Of Two Europes: East Vs. West Air Travel To U.S.

Overall, global travel to the USA is dropping compared to last year. While stories like the one I covered yesterday about two German teens being imprisoned and strip-searched do not (yet) dispotisively prove any change in US policy at the border, the data suggests these headline-grabbing stories are turning prospective visitors away from the U.S.

Per U.S. government figures, the total number of global visitors by air, sea, and land declined by 11.6% in March 2025 compared to the same month last year. Overall, global visitors to U.S. are down 3.3% in 2025 compared to 2024.

Here, I want to focus on European air traffic, which has traditionally been lucrative (European visitors fly to the USA and spend money) and growing on a year-on-year basis as the world emerges from the pandemic. But what is emerging this year is a geographic bifurcation, with Western European nations generally showing a decline (in some cases, a steep decline) while traffic from Eastern Europe is growing.

The chart below is startling: we see big increases in traffic this year from Slovenia, Poland, Russia, and Romania but crashes in traffic from Luxembourg, Iceland, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Norway, Hungary, Switerland, Spain, and Austria (and those are just the countries down more than 20%).

European Visitors To The U.S.

Airplane arrivals (March 2024 vs March 2025)

Interestingly, perhaps with the exception of Viktor Orbán-led Hungary, we see traffic declining from more left-leaning nations and increasing from more right-leaning nations. For purposes of our discussion, however, I am much less interested in the politics as in the absolute numbers.

I suspect U.S. airlines CEOs at American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, and United Airlines are in panic over these numbers as we approach the busy summer travel season…can flights even make money if this trend continue or worsens as more “horror stroies” are shared (and yes, sometimes sensationalized) by the media?

I still don’t have my August tickets to Germany booked and I’m in a holding pattern for now: I truly hope Europeans won’t stay away, because the U.S. needs European visitors: the multiplier effect of a steep downturn in visitors from Europe will ripple across the economy, though it may leads to some great airfare deals to Europe later this summer as carriers have already committed to routes and sold seats on flights that may not fill up as projected.

Mark this as a developing story, but these latest figures are concerning and may only be the tip of the iceberg if a trade war escalates and the U.S. alienates other NATO nations by pivoting away from Ukraine toward Russia.