Patrick de Haan has a comprehensive view of skyrocketing prices across the country. He’s the head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, a company that gathers sources of gas price data. But lately, he’s feeling the pain of emptying his wallet for one of the latest Trends in rising costs – air travel.
“My wife and I booked two trips to Rio last year,” de Haan said. “Now I only spend 20% more to get to Atlanta than I spend to go to Brazil.”
But it’s bad news that goes beyond the De Haan family’s budget. Many travelers who are accustomed to registering pandemic flight deals face an unpleasant surprise as the tides of cheap air travel turn.
According to Hopper, the flight book app, the cost of domestic air travel is up 40% since the beginning of the year with an average round-trip flight of $330. The company expects prices to rise 10% in May.
Many air travel experts say the worst is yet to come. Two years after COVID crushed our travel plans, consumer demand is now high even though prices have gone up just as the cost of jet fuel has inflated due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This is a double whammy on prices.
People see an opportunity where they can book summer flights as cases of (COVID) seem to be low. “It really drives that desire to travel,” said Vivek Pandya, principal analyst at Adobe Digital Insights, which collects air travel data.
Pandya said the era of cheap prices officially ended in February when domestic air travel fares exceeded pre-pandemic costs.
Airlines also have trouble keeping planes over the tarmac due to a shortage of pilots and weather delays that contribute to cost increases. Earlier this month, Alaska Airlines and other airlines canceled more than 3,500 US flights in one weekend, affecting tens of thousands of travelers. JetBlue said this week that it is expected to reduce flight capacity by up to 10% over the summer, CNBC reported.
For California’s most popular route from San Francisco to Los Angeles, a weekend trip is about $200 in May, nearly double the average cost over the past two months, according to price data on Google Flights. But weekday travelers are in luck as they can still land a flight for under $100. That’s cheaper than driving the same route, where the car does 40 miles per gallon or less, at over $10.
There is a small window to fly in May where bargain-hunting travelers can get cheaper airfares, said Kathleen Bang, a former airline pilot and a spokeswoman for flight tracker FlightAware. “Especially the earlier part (of May), because it’s a holiday after spring, but not Memorial Day weekend,” Bangs said. “But now the demand is so great for the summer season that Europe is back, despite the ongoing war in Ukraine.”
Michelle Goodwin, who lives in San Francisco, will be going to Austin, Texas, later this month to see country musician George Strait. I just booked the return leg for this week. “I booked that flight yesterday and it was like an ‘ah’ – I felt like I had been scammed,” Goodwin said. In the end, I booked a 5am return flight for $200 to avoid the other options, which were over $600.
“When I traveled before I accepted that it’s expensive, but now it’s so expensive that I can’t do it,” she added. “It will definitely prevent me from going places this summer.”
At Mineta San Jose International Airport on Tuesday, travelers waiting for their luggage shared stories of sticker shock and regret that they’ve seen fares double sometimes within days.
“I watched my flight go up from $139 to $300,” said a 72-year-old whose first name was only Tom. He bought a one-way ticket from Boston three weeks ahead of schedule. “I thought I had a pretty cheap ticket to start with, but I waited too long.”
But not all travel bookings have to be a tedious process to empty your wallet. Some travelers who searched for bargains or were pleasantly lucky were surprised by the price of their tickets.
Michael Petrellis, a longtime LGBT advocate in San Francisco, got a $300 business-class flight aboard United from Newark to San Francisco. “After sleeping for two hours, I watched a favorite Polish movie, IDA, while enjoying an airline snack,” Petrilis said. “All my travels should be this way!”
