April 25. Over the past year or two, there’s been a steady stream of coverage about the cost of airline tickets. For the most part, headlines have focused on the fact that prices seem to be skyrocketing.
As recently as February, CNN reported that some airfares were up by as much as 50 percent over one year earlier. That news story was based on a data analysis conducted by the travel site Hopper, which showed that compared to 2019, international fares to Asia in particular were about 50 percent more costly than the previous February. Similarly, the report showed that fares to Europe were about 15 percent higher than one year ago.
In the U.S. meanwhile, airline ticket prices as of February 2023 were about 20 percent higher than one year earlier, but only 4 percent higher than pre-pandemic costs in 2019 (which is an important point, so read on.)
A new report from the International Air Transport Association (IATA) suggests airline ticket prices, as shocking as they may be, are not nearly as high as we all think they are.
The report also points out that prices “remain significantly below the inflation seen in jet fuel prices.” This is an important point because the cost of jet fuel accounts for 25 percent to 30 percent of an airline’s operating costs, according to IATA, which is a challenging reality when prices for fuel are steadily notching upward.
Source: Travel Pulse
