American Airlines is raising its revenue forecast for Q3

Despite the long lines, the delayed luggage, the overwhelming congestion, and the chaos of summer air travel, the bottom line remains that flyers returned in droves and flexed their pent-up demand.

So much so that American Airlines is raising its revenue forecast for the third quarter.

The airline said Tuesday that sales will be better than expected after assessing the July, August and September earnings quarter, according to CNBC.

That’s good news for the company, of course, after two devastating years following the pandemic. American will officially report its Q3 earnings on Thursday, October 20. But as CNBC pointed out, a portion of that optimism to raise revenue projections came from higher airfares. Higher airfares came from higher fuel prices and other expenses that the carrier needed to offset.

CNBC reported that revenue is expected to be up 13 percent from the third quarter of 2019, the year that travel entities use to mark their comparisons of pre-pandemic vs. post-pandemic.

Though revenue will be up, the airline did say it flew almost 10 percent less flights than it did in 2019.