Cirium, an airline analytics watcher, has been keeping track of summer airline bookings between Europe and the United States, and the company reports that passenger numbers are tumbling hard and fast.
The company looked at a "statistically significant" number of purchases for July travel made through third-party airfare sellers between Oct. 7, 2025, and the end of January 2026, and compared those numbers with the same period the year before.
According to Cirium's findings, bookings from the United States to Europe (Americans flying to Europe, in other words) have dropped by 7.3%, a concerning amount for a single year.
But the drop in travel from Europe to the United States is downright alarming: a 14.2% plunge.
Cirium's findings didn't include bookings made directly through the airlines, which don't reveal internal booking numbers publicly. Still, the drop is a strong indication that something is very wrong and Europeans are dramatically pulling back from travel to the United States.
"The study found the bookings were down in both directions between the U.S. and nine Europe destinations: Amsterdam, Athens, Paris, Dublin, Rome, Frankfurt, Madrid, Munich, and Milan," reports Travel Weekly.
From Amsterdam: -23%
From Athens: -19%
From Barcelona: -26%
From Dublin: -15%
From Frankfurt: -36%
From Madrid: -16%
From Milan: -8%
From Munich: -19%
From Paris: -21%
From Rome: -5%
Of the major cities the report looked at, London showed a rise in bookings to the U.S., but only by 1%, which is essentially flat. Meanwhile, bookings to London from the U.S. are down 3%.
Cirium found a similar collapse in advance bookings to the U.S. from Canada (Calgary, Edmonton, Halifax, Montreal, Ottawa, Regina, Toronto, Vancouver, and Winnipeg). Bookings from those cities are down 15.16% year over year.
Dramatic passenger drop bound to affect prices
So far, we're not seeing huge airfare sales to offset the tumble in advance bookings.
That could be because we're still a month or two away from when most tourists will begin planning their summer travel, so the airlines could be waiting to see if the situation will turn around.
But if you're planning to fly to Europe this summer, sales could be coming.
If you don't have a ticket yet, it's a good idea to use our ranking of the 10 Best (and Cheapest) Airfare Search Sites and use the ones (like Skyscanner and Momondo) that offer airfare price tracking features to notify you of sales.
When you do pull the trigger on your fights, try to purchase a category of airfare that will allow you to cancel and rebook at a lower sale price later on if necessary.
If you already have European airfare in hand for this summer, be watchful for changes to your flight. When bookings are low for sustained periods, airlines have been known to switch to smaller aircraft to avoid flying too many empty seats. That could affect your seating, your route timing, and your transfer times.
With bookings falling off a cliff, American hotels and tour operators will also be hurting. As their former customers from Europe and Canada seek vacations elsewhere, rooms and tours will be unexpectedly empty, so those industries, too, may be slashing rates to stimulate business this summer.
That sounds like a temporary boon for domestic travelers, but don't forget that the disruption is also certain to force many family businesses in travel and hospitality into bankruptcy.
It's not much of a mystery why
Bizarrely, some travel industry commentators have expressed confusion about why this could be happening. After all, some of the FIFA World Cup will be taking place in the U.S. in July, and, historically, that event is a driver of increased international tourism for the tournament's host nation.
Travel Weekly, one of the foundational news outlets for the travel industry, didn't posit a theory about the precipitous drop in its coverage of the Cirium data.
Ben Schlappig of the popular airline blog One Mile at a Time provided six potential theories behind the cratering business from the U.S., most of them connected to issues of affordability. "Do they just feel like they’re now at the point where they’ve 'been there, done that,' and don’t need to go anymore?" Schlappig wondered.
But the drop in international visitors coming to the United States is even larger. If the incoming tourist numbers are evaporating, shouldn't we hazard a theory as to why? Why not ask people who live in those countries?
Fortunately, many of the comments beneath Schlappig's expression of bewilderment are vehemently pointing out the elephant in the room.
Writes one commenter: "I have another explanation that seems to be missing, and arguably the most realistic reason for EU–US demand significantly down: The European boycott of the US and US products. It started last year and intensified in the last few months. Simple and straightforward."
Another: "I’ve discussed this with close friends especially in Denmark, but also throughout the EU and UK and they are across the board avoiding US travel. They’d rather go to Canada, Mexico, Latin America, Asia, and Down Under. I can’t blame them."
Indeed, in 2025 and 2026, tourism has been surging to record numbers in France, Italy, Germany, Portugal, Spain, and the United Kingdom.
It stands to reason that in the marketplace of international tourism, the winners are the countries that currently don't want to inspect visitors' social media accounts at the border, aren't charging triple-digit prices to visit national parks, and aren't setting masked domestic paramilitary forces loose onto the streets of some of their most popular cities.
Politics may not be the only factor keeping travelers away from the United States. World Cup prices, for instance, are ridiculous (parking for $300?).
But good grief, you'd have to be completely disassociated from reality not to at least consider that the current mayhem in the U.S. is playing a role in repelling many would-be visitors from overseas.
If you doubt why tourism to America is nosediving, you don't have to guess. Ask a few Europeans what they think.