Scott Kirby, the chief executive officer of United, announcing ten new routes. And I was looking at these routes: Ibiza, Balboa, Toulouse, Okinawa, Valencia. I mean, it's a list of where in the world might you want to go? Is there a renewed emphasis on international and vacation types of destinations for United?
Yes, I would. It's not just renewed. We, you know, we're the largest international airline in the US by a pretty wide margin. And it will continue to grow. What we've realized is, as we've built a brand loyal airline that customers love and customers want to fly, it allows us to open up new destinations to Americans around the globe. And it's been really successful. It's an exciting day for us. Ten new flights, ten new destinations around the globe in a single day. I don't think any airline history has done something like that, and it's going to be a great summer ahead for our customers and our employees.
In the past five years or so, there has been this huge expansion and the total revenue that United derives from international relative to domestic. Do you expect that to be the path of travel going forward that will continue?
Yeah, I think our growth rate internationally is going to be, you know, is going to be significantly higher than domestic. We have great hubs for it. We were born on third base for international expansion. Newark is a phenomenal hub, is the best hub for flying across the Atlantic. And now that the FAA, you know, has done has really taken steps with slot controls and staffing, Newark is now the most reliable of the three New York airports. The first time that I know of that's happened. It really enables this kind of expansion, regardless of traffic patterns.
You're still trying to expand to JFK. And I have to say that trying to get out there these days with the traffic is a notable feat. But you are planning to continue the expansion there with the JetBlue partnership. And even beyond that, how is that going? Kind of where are you in the process?
You know, we get our slots next year to get back into JFK, probably the second half of the year. We've got aircraft delivery delays also. So we have to wait for Airbus to get deliveries in time to have flat seats on all those aircraft. But we're excited to get back into JFK and fly to transcon markets sometime next year.
What time we spoke, you were talking about you have been talking about the resilience of the US consumer and how much people have adjusted, continue to want to fly premium. That's been one of the fastest growing areas for the network. Has that continued or have you seen any shift in that?
Yeah. Demand is strong really across the board. You know, from premium all the way to base economy. We really haven't seen the cracks in demand in the economy. You know, every time I talk to you, I say the economy is held up better than the pundits would have thought. And even than I would have thought, given everything that's happening in the world. But consumer demand is really strong. We are a very good real time indicator of what's happening with the economy and how people feel about the economy, and demand is strong. I looked at the bookings for yesterday. This morning, demand is strong all the way through yesterday.
So if you put your economists hat on and do you have a sense of how would you characterize things? Are things heating up? Are they slowing down? Are they staying at sort of a stable, strong level?
I'd call it stable. You know, I think the economy is not I really don't see any places of weakness. But, you know, it feels a little tentative. You know, when you think about some people worried you'd be worried about is, you know, above all, your prices, like, you know, or interest rates, all of that sort of. It feels a little tentative, but the party still going and people are people are booking demand is strong. Business demand is leisure demand. It's premium. Its economy is really across the board.
One thing that we have seen is jet fuel prices came down briefly and then they've been going back up. And even though crude prices haven't necessarily remained as elevated, jet fuel has. Are you still on track to offset any increase in oil prices through price increases for fares through the fourth quarter of this year?
I believe we are. And the good news for us is really since mid-March, this is what we've been planning for. We said back in mid-March that we thought oil had a good chance of being higher for longer. It seemed hard to me to think that the Straits of Hormuz were going to be reliably and sustainably opened up. I continue to think that I continue to hope I'm wrong. But also, I've been pleasantly surprised at all the workarounds that are getting oil out of the Gulf and from other places to the market. So given the closure of the Straits of Hormuz, I think oil as well, it's elevated, has been less elevated than it could have been. And I think we'll see continue to see that, you know, at least I hope we'll continue to see that trend going for more and more oil getting into the market through other means.
So do you think that jet fuel prices where they are seems about normal at this point?
