US airlines look toward recovery in 2021

US airlines lost an estimated $35 billion in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Looking ahead to what Delta CEO Ed Bastian called a “year of recovery,” airline executives are hopeful that travel demand will begin to recover United CEO Scott Kirby explained, “This is one of those strange situations where I think we’re probably better at forecasting what’s going to happen a year from now than we are what’s going to happen next quarter.” Meanwhile, Alaska Airlines looked back at 2020 by focusing on the positive, featuring high points like a musical safety video that went viral, efforts to promote diversity and employees who went above and beyond, including one who lent her car keys to a passenger.