Air tickets being sold by travel agencies via the global distribution system are recovering much slower than those for hotel bookings, data disclosed by Sabre shows.
The distribution and technology provider says gross air bookings through the GDS in May were running at 62% lower than in May 2019.
Hotel transactions were approximately 35% down over the same period, Sabre says in a regulatory filing.
The number of passengers boarded through Sabre's hosting systems were lower in May 2021 to the tune of 44% when compared to May 2019.
Sabre says the figures continue to "reflective of COVID-19 case counts, cumulative and daily vaccination rates and regional travel restrictions."
The filing continues: "As COVID-19 vaccines continued to be administered, we saw continued sequential improvement in our key volume metrics in May 2021 versus April and the first quarter of 2021.
"The improvement in our key volume metrics continued to be largely driven by recovery trends in domestic leisure travel."
The lowest point for Sabre's tracking of activity since 2019 came in mid-April last year, when air bookings through travel agencies and passengers boarded came in at 95% lower than in the same period in 2019.
During the lukewarm start to some travel operations between July and late 2020, gross air bookings were still down by 80-85%.