US government shutdown cost Delta Air Lines $200m

The longest US government shutdown ever cost Delta Air Lines $200 million.

 

The disclosure by Virgin Atlantic’s US partner came as its boss reflected on a “volatile” 2025 including tariffs imposed by president Donald Trump earlier in the year.

 

However, the carrier revealed that demand “remains healthy” for the December quarter and trends are strong for early 2026. 

 

“Growth in travel bookings has returned to initial expectations following a temporary softening in November related to the government shutdown, which is expected to impact the company’s December quarter pre-tax profitability by approximately $200 million,” Delta said.

 

Chief executive Ed Bastian, speaking at a Morgan Stanley global consumer and retail conference yesterday (Wednesday), said: “It’s been a volatile year, whether its tariff issues that we faced early part off the year. The consumer as well as business confidence freezing for the better part of several months in the early spring, right through to just the start of summer.

 

“You look at the government coming through and mandating a shutdown of the airspace, which for us had never happened before - the longest government shutdown in history.”

 

Delta performed “very, very well” through that period, he noted, and will end the year with profits of roughly $5 billion - just shy of the previous year - against an industry backdrop of anticipated 40% falls.

 

“We we looked back at the impact of shutdown, it’s going to cost us about $200 million,” Bastian revealed. “We saw from that day, Friday, November 7, right through for about 10 days, somewhere between a 5% to 10% immediate reduction in bookings.

 

“Business was a big part of that because refunds grew significantly. None of that was in our forecast, our plan.”

 

He pointed out that international travel was not affected as the shutdown was isolated to the US domestic system.

 

‘The reality is just that we’re through it,” Bastian added. "Thanksgiving was strong. We just had Cyber Monday, we had Travel Tuesday. We had Sunday, which is always the busiest day of the year for us for travel. Once again. It’s an all-time record we set on Sunday.

 

“So I think we’re through it, it’s transitory, and we’re looking forward to a strong December, strong close to the year.”