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Why Are Flights So Expensive and What Can You Do about It?

  • Air Travel
  • Renee Martin
  • 6 minutes

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If you’ve been looking for cheap flights recently, you’ve undoubtedly been surprised by the pricing. Despite your best attempts to be flexible on travel dates and airports at the destination, you can’t seem to locate the amazing offers you’ve become accustomed to seeing post-pandemic. So, why are flights so expensive right now? Can passengers expect airline fares to spike more this year? Will airlines keep raising their costs when more people return to the skies, even if fuel prices drop? 

According to the Adobe Digital Economy Index, passengers spent $8.8 billion on online flight tickets in March, a 28 percent increase over the same period last year. While expenditure was up, bookings were only 12 percent higher than in March of this year, according to the statistics. 

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Why are flights so expensive right now? 

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Ticket prices are rising due to increased passenger numbers and fuel expenses. The cost of jet fuel, which is the second-highest expense for airlines behind labor, has been climbing since the Russia-Ukraine crisis interrupted global crude oil supplies. 

These are not the only reasons, though. So let’s break it down a little more.  

Higher demand means fewer cheap flights 

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First and foremost, keep in mind that flight fares are subject to the same supply and demand principles as any other product. 

 When more people desire to travel, even if only on certain routes, airlines realize they can demand more fees. On the contrary, airlines must decrease their rates to sell more when fewer people buy tickets. 

While the epidemic may be your most recent experience of low demand, it is not the only scenario that might increase or decrease your willingness to travel.  

It might be due to a variety of factors such as weather, season, natural catastrophes, huge events, and so on. and so on.  

During the pandemic, demand decreased 

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If you’re reading this, you’re probably aware that the epidemic temporarily halted the tourism business. Whether it was due to lockdowns and closures or by choice because travelers did not feel comfortable, fewer individuals were buying plane tickets in 2020-2021. 

Naturally, flight prices dropped (for the flights that were still taking off). This lasted quite some time, and several folks were lucky to have super-low-cost vacations in 2021 because of these low costs.  

As the situation changed and borders opened up, demand and thereby prices moved in the opposite direction. Demand surged, making those super-low-ticket prices increasingly difficult to come by. 

Seasonality impacts demand 

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Forget about pandemics; demand in the travel sector fluctuates based on several other criteria, such as the season. 

 Traveling anyplace in the weeks around Christmas is always double, treble, or even more expensive than in the off-season. So don’t forget to consider your destination’s seasonality each time you travel.  

For instance, if you can only take time off from work in March, deciding to go to Japan to visit Disneyland Tokyo could be costly. You will certainly be impacted by the high expenses of cherry blossom season even if you aren’t there to see them. 

On the other hand, if you can only visit Magaluf during the off-season in winter, you will receive the finest bargains of the year. 

Flight tickets get more expensive when jet fuel prices go up

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 You might be fed up with hearing about rising gas costs in the news. But unfortunately, it’s a problem that goes beyond your weekly fill-up and plays a huge role in spiking aircraft ticket prices. 

Airlines use specific tactics called hedging to help them obtain better rates on jet fuel, but it is not total protection from the curse of shifting oil prices. Increased gasoline prices result in higher ticket prices, and there is no way around it. 

Business travelers have an impact on flight costs 

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The airline industry adores business passengers. Airlines may charge them a higher fare because they are not as price-sensitive as leisure travelers. They are also more likely to reserve the costliest seats on the airline in advance, resulting in a higher profit.  

What impact does this have on you, a presumably non-business traveler? You’d be shocked, and rather considerably, that it does. The number of business travelers on a trip directly impacts how much money the airline makes and how much everyone else pays. 

Will flight costs go down soon? 

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In the absence of a discernible trend, we can’t be sure. The price of a plane ticket is subject to minute-by-minute fluctuation. Flight prices might rise or fall at any time due to the large-scale factors that have driven them up. 

What this really means is that cheap flights are still available in 2022 and far into the summer and fall of that year. So there is no one-size-fits-all answer here.  

According to our research, we’re still able to discover some of the most affordable airfares for future travel – in some cases, even lower than we’d found during the pandemic’s peak. 

How to save money on flight expenses in 2022 

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With rising airfare and increased demand for summer travel, many Americans are eager to locate amazing discounts before time runs out. Here are our top three recommendations for saving money this summer: 

Be adaptable 

 By flying on a Tuesday or Wednesday this summer, you may save up to 18% or $75 on each ticket. When traveling internationally, depart on a Thursday to save up to 6%, or $60, per round trip ticket. 

Book your vacation during late summer to save even more money. Airfare often reduces in September and October compared to peak summer months, as demand drops towards the end of the summer when vacations expire, and kids return to school. 

Book at the best time 

Start keeping an eye on costs today using a price monitoring tool like Hopper to guarantee you’re alerted in real-time if an incredible offer becomes available or if prices begin to climb. 

To get bargain prices on summer travel, plan your summer vacation by the end week of May. Prices will go up by 6% – 12% on average before peaking in late June. 

Use up all of your unused canceled flight coupons. 

That ‘rainy day’ you kept them for is here. So, utilize those canceled flight coupons from 2020 and 2021 before they expire, or forget about them if you can’t recall what you have on hand. Simply log in to your airline accounts and see what you have. Also, don’t forget to log on to the Way app to check your Waybucks balance. You can use them for airport parking, thereby reducing travel costs.  

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