Delta Air Lines earned $2 billion in the fourth quarter, posted record full-year revenue, and says it is buying more planes to boost its international flying.

The airline’s shares fell 9% Friday, however, as the company pulled back on its profit forecast for 2024.

Delta said full-year earnings will be $6 to $7 a share — down from an earlier prediction of more than $7 a share. Analysts had already trimmed their expectations to $6.50 a year, but the update from Delta was enough to spook investors.

Delta is the first U.S. airline to post fourth-quarter results, and its report sent shares of American, United, Southwest, Alaska and JetBlue down between 4% and 11%.

Delta said Friday that it will buy 20 Airbus A350s and take options to buy 20 more of the long-range jetliners. Delta expects to get the first ones in 2026.

The A350s will have more premium seating than the planes they replace, which will play into Delta’s strategy of pursuing high-end travelers who are more insulated from ups and downs in the economy.

Airlines were helped in 2023 by strong demand for travel from people who had spent most of the pandemic cooped up at home. Delta passengers flew 19% more miles last year than they did in 2022.

CEO Ed Bastian said he expects that trend to continue.

“We actually saw the highest cash sales day in our history on Tuesday,” Bastian said in an interview. “So our consumer is healthy (financially), our consumer wants to travel. That tells us it’s going to be a very good year, 2024.”

Bastian said, however, he was concerned about higher maintenance costs, which he blamed on supply-chain disruptions, and an inability to receive new planes on schedule because of disruptions at engine and aircraft makers.

Delta posted fourth-quarter net income of $2.04 billion, more than doubling the profit of $828 million in the same period the year before.

Excluding special items, its adjusted earnings were $1.28 per share. That beat analysts’ average forecast of $1.16 per share, according to a survey by FactSet.

Revenue rose 6% to $14.22 billion. Passenger revenue increased 12%, and spending on premium services — like sitting in business class instead of the main cabin — surged 15%.

However, Delta’s refinery in Pennsylvania brought in $579 million less revenue than a year earlier, a 51% drop.

On the cost side, spending for labor soared 23% — a reflection of higher wages, especially from a contract that union pilots ratified in March of last year.

For the full year, Delta’s revenue rose 15% to more than $58 billion. Net income more than tripled, to $4.61 billion, up from $1.32 billion in 2022.

The full-year profit fell short of pre-pandemic 2019, when Atlanta-based Delta earned $4.77 billion, but it was enough to buy more planes.

Delta has a mix of Airbus and Boeing planes in its fleet of more than 900 planes, not counting its regional affiliates. It already had 28 A350s at the end of September with commitments to buy another 16. Friday’s order could push the total of A350s to more than 80 if the options are used.

The A350 competes with Boeing’s 787. Both have fuselages and wings made of carbon-fiber-reinforced composites. Delta doesn’t use the 787, although it has other Boeing jets.

Bastian said Boeing’s current problems, including a government investigation into parts on its 737 Max 9 jet, were not a factor in Friday’s order. He said the company wanted continuity with the A350.

Delta doesn’t have any Max jets, but it has committed to buy 100 of the larger Boeing 737 Max 10, a plane that has not yet been certified by the Federal Aviation Administration.

“We need Boeing to do well,” he said. “It’s a great company. It’s an important company to our country and our industry.”

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Delta Air Lines has settled allegations by a pilot who said the airline ordered her to undergo a psychiatric examination and barred her from flying in retaliation for raising safety concerns to company executives.

The settlement approved Friday ends a long-running dispute in which a federal arbiter agreed with many of the pilot’s claims and said Delta failed to show any faults in her flying ability. In 2019, the case threatened to derail former President Donald Trump’s choice to lead the Federal Aviation Administration.

Terms of the settlement were confidential, although the pilot’s law firm said they were “consistent with” the arbiter’s 2020 ruling, which said Karlene Petitt deserved to get $500,000 in compensation for damage to her career.

Atlanta-based Delta declined to comment.

Petitt pressed her case under a 2000 law designed to protect whistleblowers who report issues of aviation safety.

In early 2016, Petitt gave two top Delta executives a report running more than 40 pages in which she raised allegations about pilots being forced to fly when they were fatigued, gaps in Delta’s pilot training, falsification of training records and other issues. She also emailed the airline’s CEO.

After meeting with Delta officials, Petitt was referred to a psychiatrist picked by the airline, who diagnosed a bipolar disorder. Petitt was grounded for nearly two years until independent doctors found her fit to fly.

Federal safety regulators looked into Petitt’s allegations and determined that Delta was not counting time that pilots spent commuting by air to flights toward their maximum work day. Delta said it changed the policy.

In 2019, the case delayed a vote on the nomination of Delta executive Stephen Dickson to lead the FAA. Dickson had authorized grounding Petitt for a psychiatric evaluation. Senate Democrats said the allegations raised questions about Delta’s safety culture and Dickson’s candor because he did not mention the case in a questionnaire that asked if he were involved in any legal proceedings.

The Senate confirmed Dickson by a 52-40 vote in July 2019, but he stepped down from the FAA this year before the end of his five-year term, citing personal reasons.

The settlement between Delta and Petitt was approved Friday by Labor Department administrative law judge Scott Morris in New Jersey.

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Spirit Airlines and Frontier Airlines agreed Wednesday to abandon their merger proposal, opening the way for JetBlue Airways to acquire Spirit.

Spirit, the largest budget carrier in the United States, said it was still in discussions with JetBlue “and expects to provide a further update in the near future.”

The decision by Spirit and Frontier to terminate their deal was announced while Spirit shareholders were still voting on the proposal. It was apparent that despite the support of Spirit’s board, shareholders were prepared to reject the Frontier deal.

The Frontier offer was worth more than $2.6 billion in cash and stock, far short of JetBlue’s all-cash bid of $3.7 billion.

Before the decision, shareholders appeared to lean against the bid preferred by Spirit’s board, an offer from Frontier Airlines that was worth more than $2.6 billion. Four previous votes have been postponed for lack of support.

A meeting of Spirit shareholders opened Wednesday morning and was quickly recessed for five hours, when voting was scheduled to end at 4:15 p.m. Eastern time. Spirit expects to announce the results shortly after the polls closed.

A combination of Spirit with either Frontier or JetBlue would create the nation’s fifth-largest airline, although it would be still quite a bit smaller than American, United, Delta and Southwest.

Competing with JetBlue’s richer cash offer, the Spirit board and Frontier argue that antitrust regulators will block JetBlue from buying Spirit, making the JetBlue bid an illusory one. JetBlue, of course, disagrees.

The Biden administration was always likely to take a close look at either deal. The president and his top antitrust official in the Justice Department have both indicated a dislike for corporate mergers.

Some analysts said that the small size of Frontier and Spirit would have earned them a pass from antitrust regulators in previous administrations, but not any more. Still, the JetBlue deal did appear more problematic, in part because the Justice Department was already suing to break up a regional partnership in the Northeast between JetBlue and American Airlines.

Frontier and Spirit announced their deal on Feb. 7, saying they would create a huge discount airline that would save consumers $1 billion a year in airfares by creating a powerful new competitor to American, United, Delta and Southwest.

The proposal would bring together two very similar airlines — both tempt travelers with rock-bottom fares but tack on fees for some things that bigger carriers include with most tickets, from soft drinks to room for a bag in the overhead bin.

They even share financial roots: Bill Franke’s Indigo Partners private equity firm invested in Spirit before taking an 82% stake in Frontier and investing in budget carriers in Mexico, Chile and Hungary.

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Frontier Airlines and Spirit Airlines are proposing to combine in a $2.9 billion deal that would create a larger discount airline to compete against the nation’s dominant carriers and, they say, promote lower fares.

Both are ultra-low-cost carriers that tempt travelers with rock-bottom prices for no-frills service but often generate more than their share of consumer complaints.

The deal is likely to get a close examination from antitrust regulators in the Biden Administration, which has signaled a tougher line against big corporate mergers. Consumer advocates criticized the Obama administration for allowing a string of major-airline mergers that greatly consolidated power in the industry.

However, the Frontier-Spirit combination would rank only fifth among U.S. airlines in passenger-carrying capacity and seventh in revenue. Frontier and Spirit are pitching their merger as a counterbalance to American, Delta, United and Southwest, which together control about 80% of the U.S. air travel market.

“The Biden administration has made it very clear over the last year that they would like to promote competition in the airline space, and this is really an answer to returning balance from a competitive perspective to the big four,” Frontier CEO Barry Biffle said in an interview.

Savanthi Syth, an airline analyst for Raymond James & Associates, said that because of the relatively small size of Frontier and Spirit, she wouldn’t expect antitrust issues “in a normal environment … but given the Biden Administration’s ‘big is bad’ approach we would expect some objection.”

The Biden administration sued last September to block a partnership between American Airlines and JetBlue in the Northeast, saying it would reduce competition and drive up prices. The case is pending.

In antitrust circles, airlines are “certainly an industry where there is a perception that a bunch of mergers got through that maybe should not have,” said Daniel Crane, a University of Michigan law professor and antitrust expert. With the Justice Department already challenging the American-JetBlue deal, “there is a real focus on being more aggressive on mergers,” he said.

Airlines are struggling to recover as the pandemic stretches into a third year. Frontier and Spirit both reported Monday that they suffered fourth-quarter losses — $87.2 million for Spirit, $53 million for Frontier. Both also posted full-year losses for 2021.

The airlines claim that if they are allowed to merge it will create many new routes that aren’t currently served by ultra-low-cost carriers, resulting in $1 billion a year in savings for consumers. They also say the combined company will grow and create 10,000 new jobs by 2026.

Ultra-low cost airlines have shaken the airline industry in recent years, using their lower cost structure — including less-senior workers — to take customers away from entrenched carriers and lure people who balk at paying major-airline fares. Frontier and Spirit say their costs are up to 40% lower on a per-mile basis, which will discourage bigger airlines from matching their prices.

The budget airlines, however, lack advantages of the giant carriers. They don’t fly long international routes, they have smaller frequent-flyer programs, and they tend to operate fewer flights per route, which leaves fewer options to rebook passengers if a flight is canceled or delayed.

Frontier and Spirit frequently have among the highest complaint rates in the industry – they ranked last and next to last in the latest monthly figures from the Transportation Department. Many of those complaints are for canceled or delayed flights. The airlines say that by combining, they will create a more reliable airline with fewer flight disruptions.

While the airlines were saying that, the Federal Aviation Administration ordered the grounding of all Frontier flights nationwide because of “automation issues.” By midday, Frontier had canceled more than 110 flights, or more than 20% of its schedule, and delayed a similar number.

Frontier spokeswoman Jennifer De La Cruz said the problem was a technology-related issue that was fixed. She said the airline was working to restore its flight schedule for the rest of the day.

Between them, Frontier and Spirit have about 280 planes and more than 350 on order. Spirit CEO Ted Christie said the combined airline would add new routes across the United States and in Latin America and the Caribbean.

The airlines did not announce the combined company’s name, its CEO or the location of its headquarters. Frontier Chairman Bill Franke, who heads a committee that will make those decisions and serve as chairman of the new company, said there is no reason to announce such things until it is clear that the merger will go through.

“Right now we need to have regulatory oversight, regulatory support for the transaction. That could take a matter of months,” said Franke, who was once Spirit’s chairman and whose Indigo Partners investment firm is now Frontier’s biggest shareholder.

According to the deal announcement, Frontier shareholders will own 51.5% of the new company. Spirit shareholders will get 1.9126 shares of Frontier plus $2.13 in cash for each of their Spirit shares, which values Spirit at $25.83 per share based on Frontier’s closing stock price of $12.39 on Friday.

The companies expect to close the transaction in the second half of the year. It still needs approval from Spirit shareholders.

In trading Monday, shares of Miramar, Florida-based Spirit rose 17.2% to close at $25.46, and Denver-based Frontier gained 3.5%.

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AT&T and Verizon will delay launching new wireless service near key airports after the nation’s largest airlines said the service would interfere with aircraft technology and cause massive flight disruptions.

The decision from the telecommunication companies arrived Tuesday as the Biden administration tried to broker a settlement between the telecom companies and the airlines over a rollout of new 5G service, scheduled for Wednesday.

Airlines want the new service to be banned within two miles of airport runways.

AT&T said it would delay turning on new cell towers around runways at some airports — it did not say how many or for how long — and work with federal regulators to settle the dispute.

A short time later, Verizon said it will launch its 5G network but added, “we have voluntarily decided to limit our 5G network around airports.” It blamed airlines and the Federal Aviation Administration, saying they “have not been able to fully resolve navigating 5G around airports” although it is working in more than 40 countries.

The announcements came after the airline industry issued a dire warning about the impact a new type of 5G service would have on flights. CEOs of the nation’s largest airlines said interference with aircraft systems would be worse than they originally thought, making many flights impossible.

“To be blunt, the nation’s commerce will grind to a halt” unless the service is blocked near major airports, the CEOs said in a letter Monday to federal officials including Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who has previously taken the airlines’ side in the matter.

President Joe Biden said the agreements by AT&T and Verizon “will avoid potentially devastating disruptions to passenger travel, cargo operations, and our economic recovery, while allowing more than 90% of wireless tower deployment to occur as scheduled.” He said the administration will keep working with both sides to reach a permanent solution around key airports.

The new high-speed wireless service uses a segment of the radio spectrum, C-Band, that is close to that used by altimeters, which are devices that measure the height of aircraft above the ground. Altimeters are used to help pilots land when visibility is poor, and they link to other systems on planes.

AT&T and Verizon say their equipment will not interfere with aircraft electronics, and that the technology is being safely used in many other countries.

However, the CEOs of 10 passenger and cargo airlines including American, Delta, United and Southwest say that 5G will be more disruptive than earlier thought because dozens of large airports that were to have buffer zones to prevent 5G interference with aircraft will still be subject to of flight restrictions announced last week by the FAA. They add that those restrictions won’t be limited to times when visibility is poor.

“Unless our major hubs are cleared to fly, the vast majority of the traveling and shipping public will essentially be grounded. This means that on a day like yesterday, more than 1,100 flights and 100,000 passengers would be subjected to cancellations, diversions or delays,” the CEOs said.

The showdown between two industries and their rival regulators — the FAA and the Federal Communications Commission, which oversees radio spectrum — threatens to further disrupt the aviation industry, which has been hammered by the pandemic for nearly two years.

This was a crisis that was years in the making.

The airline industry and the FAA say that they have tried to raise alarms about potential interference from 5G C-Band but the FCC ignored them.

The telecoms, the FCC and their supporters argue that C-Band and aircraft altimeters operate far enough apart on the radio spectrum to avoid interference. They also say that the aviation industry has known about C-Band technology for several years but did nothing to prepare — airlines chose not to upgrade altimeters that might be subject to interference, and the FAA failed to begin surveying equipment on planes until the last few weeks.

After rival T-Mobile got what is called mid-band spectrum from its acquisition of Sprint, AT&T and Verizon spent tens of billions of dollars for C-Band spectrum in a government auction run by the FCC to shore up their own mid-band needs, then spent billions more to build out new networks that they planned to launch in early December.

In response to concern by the airlines, however, they initially agreed to delay the service until early January.

Late on New Year’s Eve, Buttigieg and FAA Administrator Stephen Dickson asked the companies for another delay, warning of “unacceptable disruption” to air service.

AT&T CEO John Stankey and Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg rejected the request in a letter that had a scolding, even mocking tone. But they had second thoughts after intervention that reached the White House. The CEOs agreed to the second, shorter delay but implied that there would be no more compromises.

In that deal, the telecoms agreed to reduce the power of their networks near 50 airports for six months, similar to wireless restrictions in France. In exchange, the FAA and the Transportation Department promised not to further oppose the rollout of 5G C-Band.

Biden praised the deal, but the airlines weren’t satisfied with the agreement, regarding it as a victory for the telecoms that didn’t adequately address their concerns.

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Determined to reclaim Thanksgiving traditions that were put on pause last year by the pandemic, millions of Americans will be loading up their cars or piling onto planes to gather again with friends and family.

The number of air travelers this week is expected to approach or even exceed pre-pandemic levels, and auto club AAA predicts that 48.3 million people will travel at least 50 miles from home over the holiday period, an increase of nearly 4 million over last year despite sharply higher gasoline prices.

Many feel emboldened by the fact that nearly 200 million Americans are now fully vaccinated. But it also means brushing aside concerns about a resurgent virus at a time when the U.S. is now averaging nearly 100,000 new infections a day and hospitals in Michigan, Minnesota, Colorado and Arizona are seeing alarming increases in patients.

The seven-day daily average of new reported cases up nearly 30% in the last two weeks through Tuesday, according to figures from Johns Hopkins University. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says unvaccinated people should not travel, although it is unclear whether that recommendation is having any effect.

More than 2.2 million travelers streamed through airport checkpoints last Friday, the busiest day since the pandemic devastated travel early last year. From Friday through Tuesday, the number of people flying in the U.S. was more than double the same days last year and less than 9% lower than the same days in 2019.

At Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey, Christian Titus was heading to visit extended family in Canada. Titus says he’s spent much of the pandemic inside but is willing to risk flying on a crowded airplane because he misses being around his family. He got a booster shot to increase his protection.

“My mental health does better by being around my family during these times,” he said. “Yeah, it’s dangerous. But you love these people, so you do what you can to stay safe around them.”

Meka Starling and her husband were excited for many members of their extended family to meet their 2-year-old son, Kaiden, for the first time at a big Thanksgiving gathering in Linden, New Jersey.

“We’ve put pictures on Facebook so a lot of them have seen pictures of him, but to get to actually touch him and talk to him, I’m excited about it,” said Starling, 44, of West Point, Mississippi.

For their part, airlines are hoping to avoid a repeat of the massive flight cancellations — more than 2,300 apiece — that dogged Southwest and American Airlines at different times last month.

The breakdowns started with bad weather in one part of the country and spun out of control. In the past, airlines had enough pilots, flight attendants and other workers to recover from many disruptions within a day or two. They are finding it harder to bounce back now, however, because they are stretched thin after pushing thousands of employees to quit when travel collapsed last year.

American, Southwest, Delta and United have all been hiring lately, which gives the airlines and industry observers hope that flights will stay on track this week.

“The airlines are prepared for the holidays,” said Helane Becker, an airlines analyst for financial-services firm Cowen. “They cut back the number of flights, the industry has enough pilots, they are putting more flight attendants through their (training) academies, and they are paying flight attendants a premium — what I’m going to call hazardous-duty pay — to encourage people not to blow off work.”

The airlines have little margin for error right now. American expected to fill more than 90% of its seats with paying customers on Tuesday. That’s a throwback to holiday travel before the pandemic.

“There is not a lot of room to put people on another flight if something goes wrong,” said Dennis Tajer, a pilot for the airline and a spokesman for the American pilots’ union.

By late afternoon Wednesday on the East Coast, airlines in the U.S. had canceled fewer than 100 flights, an unusually low number, according to FlightAware. The Federal Aviation Administration reported very few airports affected by significant delays.

“The airport was easy. It took us five minutes to get through security,” said Ashley Gregory, who returned home to Dallas with her husband and daughter after a few days in Jacksonville, Florida.

“But our bags are late,” she added, glancing at the empty baggage carousel at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport.

Several travelers interviewed at DFW said their flights were full but people behaved well. The Justice Department said Wednesday it will prioritize prosecution of passengers who violate federal law on flights — the latest in a series of crackdowns against violence on planes. In the worst incidents — some captured on video and posted to social media — flight attendants have been injured.

Casey Murray, president of the pilots’ union at Southwest, said he had not received any reports of major incidents involving passengers for several days.

“I don’t think anything is going to make video, which is good,” Murray said. “That’s just another layer of stress, complexity and fatigue on top of everything else that is going on.”

At Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix, hundreds of travelers waited in security lines snaking around in a half-dozen loops. The terminals were packed with people, and with seats all taken, travelers sat in floors as they waited for their flights. There were also long lines for food at a time when some Phoenix airport workers are on strike in a dispute over wages and benefits.

At the Denver airport, Rasheeda Golden arrived from Houston with her boyfriend and his sister on their way to a snowmobiling excursion over Thanksgiving.

“It’s exciting to be traveling now, especially with things opening back up, some sense of normalcy going on. I welcome it,” she said.

Golden added that she’s not worried about flying, but she remains cautious when she is in “a cluster of too many people.”

“As long as we have our masks on, I’ve done my part,” she said. “The rest is to enjoy my vacation.”

For holiday travelers going by car, the biggest pain is likely to be higher prices at the pump. The nationwide average for gasoline on Tuesday was $3.40 a gallon, according to AAA, up more than 60% from last Thanksgiving.

Those prices could be one of several factors that will discourage some holiday travelers. In a survey conducted by Gasbuddy, which tracks pump prices, about half of the app users who responded said high prices will affect their travel plans this week. About two in five said they aren’t making as many trips for a variety of reasons.

President Joe Biden on Tuesday ordered 50 million barrels of oil released from America’s strategic reserve to help bring down energy costs, in coordination with other major energy consuming nations. The U.S. action is aimed at global energy markets, but also at helping Americans coping with higher inflation and rising prices ahead of Thanksgiving and winter holiday travel.

The price at the pump was a bit of a shock to Tye Reedy, who flew into California from Tennessee and borrowed his friend’s truck for some sightseeing. Gas was running $5 a gallon at the Chevron in Alameda, and it cost $100 to fill up the truck.

“We did not travel last year because of COVID restrictions and all,” Reedy said. “We’re confident enough … with the vaccine and where things are now with the virus that, you know, we felt comfortable traveling.”

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United Airlines says that more than half its employees who weren’t vaccinated last month have gotten their shots since the company announced that vaccines would be required.

The airline’s 67,000 U.S.-based employees face a Sept. 27 deadline for getting vaccinated. United said Wednesday, however, that employees whose bids for exemptions based on medical reasons or religious beliefs are denied will get five more weeks to get vaccinated.

After that, the airline said, they will face termination or unpaid leave.

Kirk Limacher, United’s vice president of human resources, made the statement about vaccinations Wednesday in memos to employees that spell out how United will handle requests for exemptions.

United declined to say exactly how many employees have recently been vaccinated, what percentage of the workforce is now vaccinated, or how many workers requested an exemption. The airline said it will have enough workers to operate its schedule this fall and into the holidays.

The airline said that in most cases, employees who refuse to get vaccinated won’t be allowed into the workplace starting Oct. 2.

United says requests for medical exemptions will be judged by medical staffers including nurses, while requests for waivers based on religious beliefs will be handled by personnel-office employees.

The process for handling workers whose exemptions are approved will vary slightly depending on the employee’s job.

Workers who routinely come in contact with passengers, such as flight attendants, gate agents and pilots, and whose exemptions are approved will face indefinite unpaid leave starting Oct. 2. They won’t be allowed back on the job until the pandemic “meaningfully recedes,” according to one of the memos.

Employees who rarely deal with passengers — examples include baggage handlers and mechanics — and whose exemptions are approved will also be put on leave, but only until the airline comes up with a plan for weekly testing and mandatory mask-wearing for them.

Headquarters employees whose exemptions are approved will be placed on leave until United decides on safety measures, including whether the person needs to come into the office.

In explaining the rules to employees, United cites statistics on the state of the pandemic in the U.S., where new infections are at their highest level since March and “likely to rise into the fall as more people are hospitalized.” Most of the cases, hospitalizations and deaths are occurring among unvaccinated people, the memos said.

Chicago-based United has taken the strongest pro-vaccination stance among U.S. airlines. Delta Air Lines says it will levy a $200 monthly surcharge on unvaccinated employees who are covered by the company’s health plan. Others including American Airlines say they will cut off paid leave for unvaccinated workers who contract COVID-19.

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The Transportation Security Administration’s current order was scheduled to expire Sept. 13. An agency spokesman said Tuesday that the mandate will be extended until Jan. 18.

The TSA briefed airline industry representatives on its plan Tuesday and planned to discuss it with airline unions on Wednesday. The mask rule also applies to employees on planes and public transportation.

The mask mandate has been controversial and has led to many encounters between passengers who don’t want to wear a mask and flight attendants asked to enforce the rule. The Federal Aviation Administration said Tuesday that airlines have reported 3,889 incidents involving unruly passengers this year, and 2,867 — or 74% — involved refusing to wear a mask.

Individual airlines declined to comment on the Biden administration’s decision, and their trade group, Airlines for America, said only that U.S. carriers will strictly enforce the rule. A broader group, the U.S. Travel Association, said the extension “has the travel industry’s full support.” The largest union of flight attendants said the move will help keep passengers and aviation workers safe.

“We have a responsibility in aviation to keep everyone safe and do our part to end the pandemic, rather than aid the continuation of it,” said Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants. “We all look forward to the day masks are no longer required, but we’re not there yet.”

The mask order, based on Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines for responding to the pandemic, was first issued on Jan. 29, days after President Joe Biden took office. Before that, airlines had their own requirements for face coverings but former President Donald Trump’s administration had declined to make it a federal rule.

The extension was not surprising after a recent surge in COVID-19 cases linked to the delta variant of the virus. The seven-day average of new reported cases has topped 140,000, an increase of 64% from two weeks ago and the highest level in more than six months.

Henry Harteveldt, a travel-industry analyst with Atmosphere Research Group, said the administration’s decision will reassure people who are concerned about the virus.

“I anticipate it will make them feel more confident about traveling through the fall and winter, including the holiday season,” Harteveldt said. “Those who don’t take the virus seriously will probably complain — but they have no choice but to suck it up and wear their masks if they want to take an airline flight somewhere.”

In recent days, Southwest Airlines, Spirit Airlines and Frontier Airlines have reported that the increase in coronavirus infections has caused a slump in bookings beyond the usual slowdown that occurs near the end of each summer.

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Disneyland reopened on Friday and cruise lines welcomed the news that they could be sailing again in the U.S. by midsummer, as the number of Americans fully vaccinated against COVID-19 reached another milestone: 100 million.

Visitors cheered and screamed with delight as the Southern California theme park swung open its gates for the first time in 13 months in a powerful symbol of the U.S. rebound, even though the self-proclaimed Happiest Place on Earth is allowing only in-state guests for now and operating at just 25% capacity.

The reopening and similar steps elsewhere around the country reflect increasing optimism as COVID-19 deaths tumble and the ranks of the vaccinated grow — a stark contrast to the worsening disaster in India and Brazil and the scant availability of vaccines in many poor parts of the world.

In fact, the U.S. announced Friday it will restrict travel from India starting Tuesday, citing the devastating rise in COVID-19 cases in the country and the emergence of potentially dangerous variants of the coronavirus.

While the overall number of lives lost to COVID-19 in the U.S. has eclipsed 575,000, deaths have plummeted to an average of about 670 per day from a peak of around 3,400 in mid-January.

Thirty-nine percent of the nation’s adult population has been fully vaccinated, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Over 55% of adults have received at least one dose, up from 30% a month ago.

However, about 8% of those who have gotten one dose of either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine have not returned for their second shot, officials said. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, said it is important to complete the course to gain maximum protection against the virus.

“Make sure you get that second dose,” he said at a White House briefing.

Dr. Leana Wen, former Baltimore health commissioner and a visiting professor of health policy at George Washington University, said fully vaccinating about 40% of American adults is a great achievement but not enough.

“The hardest part is ahead of us,” she said. “I’m very concerned that we are not going to come anywhere close to reaching herd immunity in 2021.”

Wen noted that Fauci has estimated 70% to 85% of the U.S. population needs to be vaccinated to achieve herd immunity.

The immunization drive has slowed in recent weeks, even as shots have been thrown open to all adults. Wen said better weather and falling case counts will make it harder to reach people who have not been vaccinated yet.

“Those people who are on the fence about getting a vaccine may have less reason to get one now because they don’t see coronavirus as an existential crisis anymore,” she said.

CDC officials also reported Friday that it was anxiety — not a problem with the shots — that caused fainting, dizziness and other reactions reported in 64 people at vaccine clinics in five states in early April. None got seriously ill.

Cruise lines, meanwhile, cheered the news that the CDC is committed to resuming sailing in the U.S. by midsummer and is adjusting some of the rules to speed the process.

The CDC said in a letter to the industry this week that it will let ships cruise without going through practice trips first if 98% of the crew and 95% of the passengers are fully vaccinated.

“The voices of community leaders and the wider cruise community are being heard — and we are very grateful for that,” said Laziza Lambert, spokeswoman for the Cruise Lines International Association.

U.S. cruises have been shut down by the pandemic since March 2020.

In other travel news, the Transportation Security Administration extended a requirement that passengers on planes, trains and buses wear masks. The rule was set to expire May 11 but will now run through Sept. 13. Airlines and their unions had pushed for an extension, saying masks help keep passengers and workers safe.

In Michigan, which in recent weeks became the worst hot spot in the U.S., the numbers are finally showing improvement, and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer announced a plan to tie the lifting of restrictions to the state’s vaccination rate.

In New York, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Thursday he expects to see preventive measures lifted and the city “fully reopen” by July 1. “We are ready for stores to open, for businesses to open, offices, theaters, full strength,” he said on MSNBC.

But New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has maintained throughout the crisis that such decisions are his alone, and he said Thursday he would like to end restrictions even sooner.

“I don’t want to wait that long. I think if we do what we have to do, we can be reopened earlier,” he said.

Cuomo said on Friday that New York City can increase indoor dining to 75% of capacity starting May 7.

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Every once in a while, social media lights up with photos or video from flights that are nearly full, with passengers clearly violating advice from public health officials about social distancing during the coronavirus pandemic.

That raises the question: How can planes still be full when air travel is down more than 90% from a year ago?

In some cases, airlines are creating the crowds by canceling other flights and packing passengers on the few remaining planes. Carriers say, however, that they are taking action to ease passengers’ fears about coronavirus contagion. Some are blocking middle seats — or letting passengers pay extra to guarantee an empty seat next to them. They are also starting to require passengers to wear facial coverings.

Here are some questions and answers about flying during the coronavirus pandemic.

HOW MANY PEOPLE ARE STILL FLYING?

The number of people traveling on airlines is scraping along at levels not seen in decades, and there are only about 17 passengers on the average domestic flight. But that’s just an average.

The number of people passing through airport security checkpoints has been rising since mid-April, but it is still down 93% from a year ago. The Transportation Security Administration screened 163,692 people on Monday, compared with nearly 2.5 million on the comparable day a year ago.

SO WHY ARE SOME FLIGHTS FULL?

Partly it is due to the high number of canceled flights.

“On routes where there used to be scores of flights between the different carriers, now there may be two or three,” says Robert Mann, a former airline executive and now a consultant in the New York area.

Airlines slash their flight schedules, and then they cancel even more flights in the last few days before departure. That can force passengers who were booked on several different flights to board the same plane.

Planes are more likely to be crowded on certain routes, especially those between so-called hub airports operated by the same airline.

ARE AIRLINES SPACING PASSENGERS?

Several carriers are blocking some middle seats.

Delta Air Lines said Tuesday that through June 30, it will also block some window and aisle seats, leaving 50% of first class and 60% of the main cabin empty. Southwest CEO Gary Kelly said his airline will temporarily cap the number of seats it sells, probably at 67% of capacity.

Frontier Airlines said Monday that through Aug. 31 it will guarantee passengers get an empty middle seat next to them — if they pay an extra fee ranging from $39 to $89.

“Sure, there are people saying, ‘You’re charging for social distancing?’ No, no, no,” Frontier CEO Barry Biffle told The Associated Press. “We are offering the option, and it is guaranteed. We don’t believe you need it — if everybody is wearing a facial covering – to be safe.”

Brett Snyder, who runs the Cranky Flier website and a travel concierge business in California, said it was a great product for Frontier to sell during the downturn in travel.

“Why not make money on a seat that is going to be empty anyway?” he said.

So far, other carriers haven’t copied Frontier.

WHAT ABOUT FACE MASKS?

All the leading U.S. airlines have announced plans to start requiring passengers to wear facial coverings during flights. JetBlue Airways was the first to announce the policy, which took effect Monday. The big four — Delta, American, United and Southwest — followed suit in recent days.

Airlines say they won’t let customers without masks board a plane. Small children and people with medical conditions that make a mask hazardous will generally be exempt, and others will be allowed to briefly remove coverings while eating or drinking.

Crews are bracing for the inevitable passenger who will flout the rules.

“We’re not going to land a plane because somebody won’t keep their mask on unless they are violent or crazy,” said an industry official who wasn’t authorized to discuss the airline’s procedures and requested anonymity. “We will flag that for corporate security, and they may not be welcome to fly us again.”

The airlines are also requiring crew members to wear face masks.

HOW DO AIRLINES CLEAN PLANES?

Every airline says it has stepped up the cleaning of plane cabins to help prevent spread of the coronavirus. Some, like Delta, say they are using misting machines to spray anti-viral chemicals inside the cabin.

Airlines insist that the air inside their planes is safe to breathe. Cabin air on most jetliners is a mix of fresh air from the outside and recirculated air that is passed through high-efficiency or HEPA filters designed to trap most airborne particles.

HOW LONG WILL THESE CHANGES LAST?

Until there is a proven treatment or widely available vaccine for COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, the changes are likely to stay in place.

If people start venturing out on airplanes this summer, it won’t look anything like summer 2019.

Traffic “will be light, you will have to wear a mask, there will be social distancing on planes and reduced on-board service to limit contact,” Snyder said. ”If there really isn’t a vaccine until the first half of next year, you’re not going to see anything approaching a new normal until next summer at the earliest.”

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