Raphael Stevens

Delta Air Lines cut its first-quarter profit and sales forecasts on weaker domestic travel demand.     
Delta maintained its full-year outlook.   
The carrier noted that both corporate and leisure bookings were down.

Delta Air Lines planes are seen parked at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport on June 19, 2024 in Seattle, Washington.
Kent Nishimura | Getty Images

Delta Air Lines slashed its first-quarter revenue and profit outlooks, citing weaker domestic demand, backing up growing concerns about lackluster sales in some corners of the travel industry.
Delta expects revenue in the quarter ending March 31 to rise no more than 5% from last year, down from a forecast in January of 6% to 8% growth. It slashed its adjusted earnings forecast to 30 cents to 50 cents per share from a previous guidance of 70 cents to $1 a share. Delta’s shares were off more than 13% in after-hours trading after falling more than 5% in the regular session on Monday.

“The outlook has been impacted by the recent reduction in consumer and corporate confidence caused by increased macro uncertainty, driving softness in Domestic demand,” Delta said in a securities filing.
Delta CEO Ed Bastian told CNBC’s “Closing Bell” on Monday that he does not expect a recession but said consumer confidence has weakened and that both leisure and business customers have pulled back on bookings.
He said concerns about safety “somewhat exacerbated the impact on us” after the deadly midair collision between a regional jet and an Army helicopter in January in Washington, D.C., as well as Delta’s crash on landing in Toronto last month that was not fatal.

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Bastian’s comments come after a broad market sell-off.
Delta’s forecast, delivered after the market closed on Monday, comes a day before a JPMorgan airline industry conference in which CEOs are expected to update investors on current demand trends. Delta said in a filing that demand for premium travel, international travel and loyalty revenue growth is still in line with its expectations.

American Airlines, Southwest Airlines and United Airlines are among the other carriers that will also update Wall Street on demand trends.
Airline shares prices have dropped sharply in recent days as growing signs of weaker consumer spending hit the sector, which had been resilient compared with other industries in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.

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UAW President Shawn Fain showed support for President Donald Trump’s tariffs, which include 25% levies on automobiles and supporting parts.
The union leader is one of the only high-profile supporters of the trade policy in the auto industry.
“Tariffs aren’t the end solution, but they are a huge factor in creating, fixing the problem,” Fain said.

United Automobile Workers (UAW) President Shawn Fain speaks on the first day of the Democratic National Convention (DNC) at the United Center in Chicago, Illinois, on August 19, 2024. 
Mandel Ngan | AFP | Getty Images

DETROIT — The head of the United Auto Workers has become an unexpected ally for President Donald Trump’s plans for North American tariffs.
UAW President Shawn Fain, who was boisterous about his disdain for Trump during the president’s campaign, is openly voicing approval of the tariffs, which include 25% levies on automobiles and supporting parts.

“Tariffs are an attempt to stop the bleeding from the hemorrhaging of jobs in America for the last 33 years,” Fain said Sunday on ABC News’ “This Week,” referring to the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1992. “Tariffs aren’t the end solution, but they are a huge factor in creating, fixing the problem.”

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Tariffs for auto companies that currently meet standards under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA, are paused until April 2, following Trump speaking with leaders from General Motors, Ford Motor and Stellantis.
The April 2 delay, which occurred a day after implementation of broader 25% tariffs on goods from Canada and Mexico, aligns with other Trump-initiated automotive tariffs for vehicles and parts being imported from outside of North America.
Fain on Sunday said he had not spoken directly to Trump, but “has been working with his team.”
Fain’s comments follow the union releasing a statement supporting the tariffs earlier in the week, saying it’s up to companies to handle any additional costs that may occur.

The union, which had endorsed then-Vice President Kamala Harris, said it’s in “active negotiations with the Trump administration about their plans to end the free trade disaster.”
“We are glad to see an American president take aggressive action on ending the free trade disaster that has dropped like a bomb on the working class,” the union said Tuesday. “There’s been a lot of talk of these tariffs ‘disrupting’ the economy. But if corporate America chooses to price-gouge the American consumer or attack the American worker because they don’t want to pay their fair share, corporate America bears the blame for that decision.”
Fain is one of the only high-profile supporters of Trump’s tariffs among automotive leaders. Auto executives as well as trade associations supporting automakers have described the tariffs as adding unnecessary chaos and additional costs to the industry.
“President Trump has talked a lot about making our U.S. auto industry stronger, bringing more production here, more innovation in the U.S., and if his administration can achieve that, it would be one of … the most signature accomplishments,” Ford CEO Jim Farley said last month. “So far what we’re seeing is a lot of cost, and a lot of chaos.”
Fain has previously condemned the North American Free Trade Agreement — which has been superseded by Trump’s USMCA trade deal since 2020 — saying such trade agreements have caused the country to lose jobs and manufacturing.
Fain and Trump have been at odds and publicly trading remarks since the union leader was elected in 2023. Trump called for Fain to be fired during a speech last year at the Republican National Convention.
Fain has regularly called Trump a “scab” and billionaire who doesn’t care about American workers, but his comments Sunday on Trump show his stance may have softened.
“The election is over. Donald Trump is the president, and we want to get to work to fix the problems that are wrong with this country, with our economy,” Fain said. “And the American people expect that. They expect leaders to stand up and lead. They don’t expect us to sit back.”
The UAW remains under a federal monitorship following a yearslong investigation into the union involving embezzlement, bribery and other charges ahead of Fain’s election. That probe resulted in several convictions of union leaders and Fiat Chrysler executives, including two past union presidents.
Federal monitor Neil Barofsky last year disclosed an investigation into Fain as well as other union leaders, accusing them of obstructing the probe and interfering with access to information.
In January, the monitor’s office said it would provide further updates on its investigative activities in a subsequent report. More

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nation’s new top health official, could further erode already falling U.S. vaccination rates against once-common childhood diseases, health policy experts said.
Kennedy, a prominent vaccine skeptic, now leads the Department of Health and Human Services and wields enormous power over the federal agencies that regulate vaccines and set shot recommendations. 
Some health policy experts said his early moves as HHS Secretary are concerning and suggest that he could undermine immunizations in less direct ways. 

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks in the Oval Office of the White House, on the day he is sworn in as secretary of Health and Human Service in Washington, D.C., U.S., Feb. 13, 2025. 
Nathan Howard | Reuters

The nation’s new top health official could further erode already falling U.S. vaccination rates against once-common childhood diseases, a development that comes as a growing measles outbreak has led to the first U.S. death from the disease in a decade.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a prominent vaccine skeptic, now leads the Department of Health and Human Services and wields enormous power over the federal agencies that regulate vaccines and set shot recommendations. 

Kennedy tried to distance himself from his previous views during his Senate confirmation hearings, claiming that he isn’t “anti-vaccine” and would not make it “difficult or discourage people from taking” routine shots for measles and polio. 
But some health policy experts said his early moves as HHS Secretary are concerning and suggest that he could undermine immunizations in other, less direct ways, which could increase the risk of children catching preventable diseases.
“The steps that he’s taken so far seem to be in line with his views of skepticism about vaccines and their safety, of wanting to allow for parents to not get their children vaccinated. It’s all things he’s championed,” said Josh Michaud, associate director of global health policy at KFF. “There might be more dominoes to fall coming.”
Kennedy has said he will review the childhood vaccination schedule, and is reportedly preparing to remove and replace members of external committees that advise the government on vaccine approvals and other key public health decisions, among other efforts. Some experts said he could also amplify data highlighting the risks of vaccines, promote unfounded claims about shots and undermine legal protections for vaccine makers. 
If rates drop even more, there could be major consequences, such as renewed outbreaks of vaccine-preventable illnesses in certain communities.

“Within the next couple of years, we could see major drops in childhood vaccination rates,” Lawrence Gostin, professor of public health law at Georgetown University, told CNBC. “He has all the powers he needs to sow public distrust in vaccines. He has a history of doing that and he has a desire to do it.”
“This could lead to significant outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases throughout America, with the disproportionate impact on red states that President Trump carried in the 2024 election,” Gostin added. 
Kennedy has a long track record of making misleading and false statements about the safety of shots. He has claimed they are linked to autism despite decades of studies that debunk that association. Kennedy is also the founder of the nonprofit Children’s Health Defense, the most well-funded anti-vaccine organization in the U.S. In a government ethics agreement in January, he said he stopped serving as chairman or chief legal counsel for the organization as of December.
But vaccines have saved the lives of more than 1.1 million children in the U.S. and saved Americans $540 billion in direct health-care costs over the last three decades, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention research released in August.
States and local jurisdictions set vaccine requirements for school children, but the federal government has a longstanding system for approving and recommending shots for the public. That includes creating the childhood vaccination schedule, which recommends when children should receive certain shots. It’s used by states, pediatricians and parents. 
The Department of Health and Human Services did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

Why have childhood vaccination rates fallen?

Childhood vaccinations and the state requirements in place for them have been “one of the greatest public health success stories” in the U.S., allowing the country to eliminate many diseases that people once feared, such as polio, according to William Moss, professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Rates stayed relatively steady for nearly a decade before the Covid pandemic, as about 95% of kindergarten children were up to date with all state required vaccines, Moss said. That includes separate shots for polio and varicella, a vaccine for measles, mumps, and rubella – called MMR – as well as a jab that protects against diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis.
But the share of kindergarten children who are up to date on their vaccinations has dipped since the pandemic, according to data collected and aggregated annually by the CDC from state and local immunization programs. Less than 93% of kindergarteners had received all state required vaccines in the 2023-2024 school year, data shows.
Exemptions from school vaccination requirements, particularly non-medical exemptions, have also increased, according to the CDC. The share of U.S. children claiming an exemption from one or more shots rose from 2.5% in the 2019-2020 school year to 3.3% in the 2023-2024 school year, the highest national exemption rate to date. Nearly all of that increase was driven by non-medical exemptions, such as religious or personal belief reasons.

That decrease appears consistent with the public’s perception of childhood immunizations. A Gallup survey released in August found only 40% of Americans said they considered childhood vaccines extremely important, down from 58% in 2019 and 64% in 2001. 
The overall decline is fueled in part by vaccine skepticism, a trend that “certainly existed far before the pandemic,” KFF’s Michaud said.
Vaccine hesitancy and the anti-vaccine movement have been around globally for decades. They are often intertwined with political, moral and spiritual ideas around the rights of an individual versus the community, the limits of government power over bodily autonomy, mistrust of medical institutions and misinformation about shot safety and efficacy. 
The politicization of the pandemic only fueled more doubts about vaccinations. 
It created a partisan divide on the public’s acceptance of the Covid vaccine, according to Sean O’Leary, chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics committee on infectious diseases. Social media and public figures amplified misinformation about Covid jabs, and some of those “falsehoods about Covid shots spilled over to an extent to other types of vaccinations,” he said. 
“There was a very precipitous drop [in vaccination rates] right when the pandemic hit, in those first few months afterwards,” O’Leary said. “And we never really completely caught up.” 
O’Leary noted that the vast majority of parents on both sides of the political spectrum continue to vaccinate their kids. 
Still, surveys suggest that the partisan division on immunizations has deepened in recent years. In 2024, 63% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters said childhood vaccinations were “extremely important,” compared to just 26% of Republicans and GOP leaners, according to the August Gallup survey. 
Five years earlier, enthusiasm was just slightly higher among the Democratic group at 67%, and double among Republican respondents at 52%. 
There are “certainly political ideologies that are driving vaccine policy in certain areas of the country,” which has a “clear downstream impact on vaccination levels,” said Dr. Neil Maniar, a public health professor at Northeastern University. 

Over three-quarters of U.S. states, or 39, had vaccination rates for the MMR shot below the “Healthy People 2030” target rate of 95% during the 2023-2024 school year. That refers to the level needed to prevent community transmission of measles, a highly contagious and deadly virus. 
The data means that roughly 280,000 school children were unvaccinated and unprotected against measles during that school year, according to the CDC. MMR vaccination rates among kindergarteners vary across states, ranging from a low of around 80% in Idaho to a high of more than 98% in West Virginia. 

Moss noted that clusters of unvaccinated people within a specific community increase the risk of disease outbreak. 
“That’s where you’re going to get these larger outbreaks like we’re seeing in Texas right now with measles,” Moss said. 
A child who wasn’t vaccinated died in the outbreak in rural West Texas, state officials said in late February, the first U.S. death from the disease since 2015. The childhood vaccination rate for measles in Gaines County, the epicenter of the current outbreak in Texas, is just below 82%.
A second patient, an unvaccinated adult in New Mexico, tested positive for measles after death, state officials said Thursday.
Kennedy last week said shots protect communities from measles, but emphasized that the decision to vaccinate “is a personal one.” He also pushed unconventional treatment regimens for measles, including cod liver oil, which is rich in vitamin A. 

Kennedy could target vaccine advisory panels

Kennedy’s HHS already appears to be targeting a key part of U.S. vaccine policy: external advisors to the government health agencies that approve shots and set recommendations for them. 
The government postponed a meeting of vaccine advisors to the CDC and a separate meeting of advisors to the Food and Drug Administration, the latter of which is crucial to determining the flu strains in next season’s shots. It is unclear why the meetings were canceled or when they will be rescheduled.

FILE PHOTO: The headquarters of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is seen in Silver Spring, Maryland November 4, 2009. 
Jason Reed | Reuters

One “clear step” Kennedy can also take to undermine vaccinations is removing members of those advisory panels that shape the government’s shot recommendations, including which jabs are covered at no cost by different types of insurance, according to Georgetown’s Gostin. 
Several reports have said Kennedy plans to replace members whom he perceives to have “conflicts of interest,” though it is unclear how many people will be outed or when. 
Gostin called conflicts of interest one of Kennedy’s “code words” for “simply purging hard working, experienced scientists from advisory committees and replacing them with those that are more skeptical of shots.” All HHS agencies and their advisory panels have rigorous policies for conflicts of interest, and there have been no related issues for years, he noted. 
Kennedy’s shake-up of advisory committees could produce “bogus recommendations” that highlight the harms rather than the benefits of shots, according to Gostin. He said those recommendations could influence governors, legislatures and school boards in red states, which could adopt policies that reduce childhood immunizations and “create wide-open opt outs of shots.” 
Those recommendations could also create greater distrust in the CDC and Trump administration among scientists and public health experts, including Gostin himself, he said.

Sherry Andrews prepares a MMR vaccine at the City of Lubbock Heath Department in Lubbock, Texas, U.S. Feb. 27, 2025. 
Annie Rice | Reuters

“It will have a longer-term corrosive effect on the value of science in America, which is already under severe attack,” he said. 
Kennedy is also reviewing the childhood immunization schedule. Experts said that could lead to removing recommendations for certain vaccines or changing their suggested use from “routine” – when the default approach is to vaccinate – to more of an individual choice guided by discussions with a health-care provider. 
The hope is that officials on the state and local level influence policy or implement practices to drive higher vaccination rates, said Northeastern’s Maniar. State and local governments may need to “expand the work they do” in some cases to “make up lost ground” and advocate for vaccinations, he added.

Cherry-picking data

Kennedy could also cherry-pick data, studies and any other information about vaccines that “create the misleading impression that shots aren’t safe and cause severe side effects,” according to Gostin. He said Kennedy could include them in official government announcements to undermine the public’s faith in shots. 
On the campaign trail, Kennedy said he wanted to “restore the transparency” around vaccine safety data and records that he accused HHS officials of hiding. Gostin called transparency another “code word” for “highlighting dubious scientific studies.” 
He added that Kennedy’s wording suggests that the government’s existing vaccine information is not transparent, when databases recording adverse events and immunization rates have long been fully open to the public. 

Antonio Perez | Chicago Tribune | Tribune News Service | Getty Images

Kennedy is reportedly shelving promotions for a variety of shots, including a campaign touting seasonal flu jabs. He wanted the CDC’s advertisements to promote the idea of “informed consent” in vaccine decision-making instead, STAT News reported in February. That refers to giving patients important information, including possible risks or benefits of a medical treatment, such as adverse events associated with shots. 
Experts have said while informed consent is important, shifting the framing of advertisements for shots that the CDC has long recommended to focus more on the potential risks could undermine people’s willingness to get vaccinated.
“When a parent exercises informed consent not to have their child immunized with measles, it certainly puts that child at risk, but it puts every child in that school with them at risk,” Gostin said. 
Kennedy would need approval from Congress to change the existing legal liability protections in place for vaccine makers, but he could still undermine them in other ways, experts said. HHS’ National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program currently pays patients injured by standard childhood vaccines and shields drugmakers from litigation. 
As HHS secretary, Kennedy can remove or add to the list of vaccines and injuries included and covered by that program, Michaud said. Any changes to the list could change some liability protections for vaccine makers, potentially spurring a wave of litigation over alleged injuries from the shots, he added.  More