The Qantas Airways Limited (ASX: QAN) share price has left the runway this morning and now trades at $5.86.
It has landed 4% in the green and consequently set a new 52 week high this morning, reaching an intraday high of $5.88 in early trade.
In fact, it's been a tremendous month for the Qantas share price, climbing 16% in this time.
Here's what we know is behind these gains.
What's tailwinds are behind the Qantas share price?
The key takeouts as to what's driving the Qantas share price lately are its updated flight policies that have been rolled out in the past few weeks.
In the last week or two, Qantas unveiled its plans to restart international flight routes to several destinations, starting mid-December.
Qantas is partly basing its decision on the forecasted COVID-19 vaccination rates, which would allow for the "reopening" of the economy.
At the current rate, it appears this could happen as soon as November – around the same time the US intends to open its borders to vaccinated travellers from 33 countries.
And that's not all – the flying kangaroo intends to capitalise on recent changes to border restrictions, offering cheap flights for Aussies in lockdown.
It recently held a "flash sale" where tickets were available to purchase for as little as $20 each, and covered cities such as Melbourne, Newcastle, and even Byron Bay.
Let's also remember how the market values shares in the first place – it's a combination of past earnings history and future earnings expectations.
In light of the policy announcements from Qantas, Australia's vaccination targets, softening border restrictions on the global scale, these all weigh in on the investment picture.
So it appears that investors may already be pricing in this momentum to the Qantas share price, which the airway is set to benefit from November onwards.
Zooming out, we see Air New Zealand Limited (ASX: AIZ) and Flight Centre Travel Group Ltd (ASX: FLT)'s share price behaving similarly over the last month or so, indicating there is strength across the broad travel sector as well.
The sum of these factors appears to be propelling the Qantas share price lately.
Qantas share price snapshot
The Qantas share price has climbed 21% higher this year to date, extending its gains over the past 12 months to 51%. A healthy recovery in the face of the pandemic.
Both of these results have outpaced the S&P/ASX 200 index (ASX: XJO)'s return of around 25% over the last year.
