The “Revenge Economy" begins, and pandemic travel hits a record high

Best feeling in Economy... When they give you water and a soda from the cart. Millions were feeling the carbonated love this weekend, as US air travel hit a pandemic high: TSA screened 1M+ passengers each day from Thursday to Sunday, the best streak in a year (they were prob all going to Miami).

• On April 15 last year, just 90K people passed through TSA — 96% fewer passengers than in April 2019. In August, we hit a daily high of 863K passengers (still ~70% fewer than in 2019).
• On Sunday, more than 1.3M people handed their IDs to TSA. That’s still 41% below 2019 levels... but it’s a serious improvement.

Return of the Biscoff cookies... Airline shares surged yesterday. United stock popped 8% after the company said it expects to stop burning cash in March (earlier than projected). Driving the travel record: rising vaccine optimism, and falling Covid cases. 15% of American adults have been fully vaxed so far. Airlines aren't the only ones showing signs of recovery...

• Urban Outfitters is seeing fresh interest in "going-out" clothes. In the last week of February, seven of Anthropologie’s top 10 selling items online were dresses (up from zero mid-pandemic).
• Carnival already has more cruise bookings for 2022 than it had in 2019, and Royal Caribbean saw a 30% increase in future bookings since the start of the year (compared to Nov/Dec).
• Ulta's makeup sales increased from January to February, while skincare declined as a percentage of sales.