Don't expect an empty seat next to you on the plane this summer, Nathan writes.

Driving the news: Delta Air Lines today reported record advance bookings for summer travel despite industrywide inflation in fares.

• CEO Ed Bastian described it as "robust demand" leading to a 17% increase in capacity for the quarter that ends in June.

The intrigue: Airfare inflation isn't scaring off prospective travelers.

• Airfares rose 17.7% in March, compared with a year earlier, according to the latest CPI data.
• But flight searches are up 25% for trips in June through August, while "interest is up triple digits for international destinations across Europe and Asia," Expedia reported this week.

State of play: One encouraging sign for airlines is that corporate travel — which has lagged leisure travel in returning to full force since the pandemic started — is showing signs of returning, Bastian said Thursday on an earnings call.

Yes, but: Airlines aren't sporting a clean bill of health.

• "All airlines, but particularly the mainline carriers, are structurally less profitable than they were pre-pandemic due to rising labor costs — particularly for pilots," according to Third Bridge analyst Christopher Raite.

What we're watching: Whether airlines and airports are prepared to handle the deluge of passengers after tens of thousands of cancelations and weather disasters last summer.

• Delta has "spent a lot of time" on "ensuring that we have the right resources in the right places with the right level of training," CFO Daniel Janki said on the earnings call.

The bottom line: Airline passengers can expect to sit elbow to elbow this summer, and it'll come at a higher cost.

The U.S. office vacancy rate is at an all-time high as commercial real estate reels from remote-work arrangements, Nathan writes.

By the numbers: It's the sixth straight quarter the rate has increased, and it's up from a post-financial-crisis low in the second quarter of 2019, CoStar Group reports.

Zoom in: Lessees are reducing office space as their deals come up for renewal.

• "Today’s hybrid work arrangements mean that the same office can support more workers," CoStar reported.

Quick take: Office landlords should be concerned.

🏈 Dan Snyder has agreed to sell the Washington Commanders to a Josh Harris-led group. (Axios)

🏪 Organized retail crime is growing in size and complexity, a new National Retail Federation report says. (Axios)

Amazon's "best days" are ahead despite "turbulent times," CEO Andy Jassy wrote in his second annual shareholder letter this morning.

• The company is in a state of transition, like many others that benefitted from pandemic trends in outsized ways and are now seeing those conditions evaporate with nearly equal speed, Hope writes.

Details: Its profit engine, Amazon Web Services, is facing "short-term headwinds" as companies are more cautious in spending, Jassy wrote.

• And its rapidly growing fulfillment center footprint is in need of optimization to bring down costs.

State of play: Amazon's stock has fallen by nearly 40% over the past 12 months as investors reevaluate its growth strategy.

Yes, but: Jassy is still betting on health care and satellite internet, which he says could pay off in the same way that AWS has.

• The company is also investing heavily in large language models, and Generative AI projects specifically, which are going to be "transformative" for Amazon, he said.

Go deeper.

Yo, Adrian, a VHS edition of "Rocky" sold for $27,500, Nathan writes.

• The videocassette of Sylvester Stallone's 1976 Oscar-winning boxing movie fetched that amount in a recent auction, the New York Times reports.

The intrigue: Old VHS tapes, it turns out, have become valuable collector items.

• But they have to be sealed in the original packaging — and it helps if they're from the original release.

Worth noting: The tape came from a time capsule that a father made for his son in 1982, according to Altan Insights.

• The father, James Kroeger, also included "Rocky II" and "Rocky III" in the capsule.
• Those tapes sold for $12,500 and $13,750, respectively.

💭 Nathan's thought bubble: Excuse me while I go check my time capsules.

"Just tap on 'Monetization' in settings."