From air mergers to visas: How Trump’s win could impact travel policy

The upcoming changes to both the White House, as Donald Trump returns to lead a new administration, and to Congress are poised to significantly alter many policies and initiatives that impact the travel sector.

Gary Leff, the travel analyst behind the View From the Wing blog, said the Trump administration will be a “break from status quo policy.” 

Trump had largely staffed his first administration with mainstream Republicans, Leff said, such as former Labor secretary Elaine Chao as Transportation secretary.

“This time may be different,” he said.  “There have been more breaks with traditional Republican establishment, and the standard Republican line is less broadly pro-business now than it was eight years ago.”

Leff said Trump’s border control efforts could extend into increased scrutiny of airport arrivals, and the Biden administration’s efforts to reduce visa backlogs may be deprioritized. 

“None of that is good for inbound tourism,” he said. “Broadly speaking, more ‘tough talk’ in foreign policy may not be conducive to visa-free travel and reduced tensions overall, which may not be good for travel.”

Tensions with China over trade, for example, Leff said, won’t support greater recovery in U.S.-China travel and the return to prepandemic level flight traffic between the two countries, which remains significantly below 2019 levels. 

The State Department just last month said it would add 1 million visa appointments in 2025, addressing the visa backlog issue that the U.S. Travel Association has long railed against. That decision could be reversed or deprioritized under a new secretary of state. 

Geoff Freeman, CEO of U.S. Travel, congratulated the President-elect in a statement in which he noted the upcoming “mega-decade” of sports events being held in the U.S. — including the World Cup and Summer and Winter Olympics — that was part of the State Department’s impetus for expanding visa appointments. 

A boon for airlines?

Airlines may be the travel sector most likely to benefit from a change in approach. 

Biden’s Justice Department has successfully prosecuted two antitrust cases against airline mergers or partnerships: The DOJ denied the JetBlue-Spirit merger and broke up the JetBlue-American Airlines Northeast Alliance.   

A second Trump administration could usher in “a breakout year for M&A,” Lucinda Guthrie, head of financial data company Mergermarket, told Variety magazine. 

However, Leff said that “Vice president-elect JD Vance has praised Lina Khan’s efforts against business.” Kahn, the Federal Trade Commission chair, has a track record of merger and acquisition opposition.

Leff added that a new administration “opens the possibility for another bite at the apple in airline partnerships like American-JetBlue. We don’t know how receptive it will be. … But it certainly raises a greater possibility than status quo continuity of policies.”

“The judge in the American-JetBlue case said that a partnership like what American has with Alaska would have been legal,” Leff said. “We could see a revised partnership proposed that doesn’t include the same schedule coordination as the original one, and new leadership at DOT and DOJ could be more amenable to it.”

Airlines may also get a reprieve from some DOT and DOJ inquires. Last month, the agencies announced a joint public inquiry into the state of competition in air travel and requested public feedback on consolidation, anticompetitive conduct and issues affecting the availability and affordability of air travel options. That move came one month after the DOT launched a probe into the loyalty programs of American, Delta, Southwest and United, saying the goal was to protect customers from potential unfair, deceptive or anticompetitive practices.

Consumer protection policies

It could also be the end of an era of high fines under Biden, such as the DOT’s $50 million penalty against American Airlines for violating the Air Carrier Access Act by “failing to protect airline passengers with disabilities between 2019 and 2023” and the $140 million fine against Southwest for last year’s operational collapse during the holiday season, which was 30 times larger than any previous fine the department had levied for consumer protection.

The change in administration has the potential to slow or halt various consumer air passenger protection initiatives that the DOT has in the works, including a proposal to require carriers to compensate flyers for airline-caused cancellations and lengthy delays. 

The new administration could also change tack on the regulation on ancillary fee transparency, which passed this year — it is now under legal challenge from airlines — provided that the case remains active as of the inauguration.

Policies in peril?

When Trump took the White House in 2017, he was dedicated to rolling back the Obama-era policies he could using executive power, such as its opening of travel to Cuba.

The extent to which his administration can repeal legislation will be determined by whether Republicans retain control of the House of Representatives, after having flipped the U.S. Senate. (As of press time, control of the House had not been decided.)  

Policies that have enjoyed bipartisan support may be less likely to be dismantled, such as President Biden’s crackdown on so-called “junk fees” and legislation that handily passed both congressional chambers, such as the Junk Fee Prevention Act, despite being introduced by Democratic senators Richard Blumenthal and Sheldon Whitehouse.

During the Biden administration, Congress passed the $1.2 trillion bipartisan Infrastructure and Investment and Jobs Act in 2021, which authorized bridge, rail and airport improvements over 10 years.

However, Trump tried and failed to pass an infrastructure bill during his first term, so it may not be a priority to repeal it. And the act is broadly popular: 65% of Americans supported the legislation, with bipartisan support, according to a Navigator survey from 2023. 

U.S. Travel, which had applauded the infrastructure bill’s passage, said in this week’s statement that the association looked forward to “working with the incoming administration to make the United States the world’s top travel destination and improve the travel experience for millions of Americans who take to the roads, rails and sky every day.”