A passenger at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam. Bloomberg photo by Simon Wohlfahrt
It might seem as if getting back to the days of cheap or reasonably priced flights – beyond, say, a serendipitous airline pricing blunder – is a thing of the past. But recently, aviation insiders have shown optimism that relief is on the way, with predictions that fares will soften as pent-up demand lets up and airlines continue to expand capacity and improve staffing.
Prices have already fallen 12% since hitting a peak in May 2022, says Scott Keyes, chief executive officer of the airfare deals subscription service Going, formerly known as Scott’s Cheap Flights, noting that the spike last spring was caused in part by the convergence of overwhelming “revenge travel” demand and an acute pilot shortage. The April 20 state of the industry report by trade association Airlines for America shows that airfares dropped 8.7% in the first quarter of 2023 from the 2019 first quarter. “For airfare the rest of the year, it’s going to be largely lower than it was last spring and summer,” says Keyes.
If flight cost is a reflection of supply and demand, pressure is easing up on both sides of the equation – at least for international flights out of the U.S. For instance, United Airlines cited lower-than-expected leisure demand for January and February 2023. (Business travel has remained below pre-pandemic levels.) More dramatically, Alaska Air reported a loss of $142 million for the first quarter of 2023, citing lower leisure demand and surging costs. That may be the beginning of a trend for those early months in the year, says Brian Sumers, aviation analyst and founder of the Airline Observer newsletter.
In the U.S., consumer behavior is shifting. Household savings aren’t as robust as they were following travel’s restart the past two years. And there’s rising concerns about inflation, banking turmoil and the potential for a recession. Even high-end consumers’ travel spending budgets are showing a dip.
On the supply side, global airlines are finally starting taking possession of long-awaited, new aircraft – despite the latest minor aircraft delivery snag – and gradually bringing their ranks of pilots to pre-pandemic levels. The progress on all fronts is incremental. A drop in fares for the second half of the year may point to a temporary reprieve that lasts between the fall and early 2024, before other factors such as pilot retirements and higher oil prices raise airfares again. But all told, says Keyes, “we are looking at cheaper fares today than we were a year ago, and I expect that to continue.”
Restarting planes that were grounded for months in 2020 has been a difficult and time-consuming endeavor for airlines, with ongoing ramifications. For one thing, it means U.S. airlines are still operating fewer planes and therefore playing catch-up on their flight capacity. But recently they’ve been able to increase seat numbers with delivery of new planes with more seats, while replacing regional jets that they retired during the pandemic. Up to 421 new aircraft are expected to be delivered to major U.S. carriers in 2023 and an additional 531 in 2024, Airlines for America reports.
For the first half of 2023, growth in domestic airline capacity continues to lag that of the gross domestic product, according to Airlines for America’s April 20 report. The two should grow proportionately. But in absolute terms, flights out of the U.S. to Mexico, Africa and the Middle East in the first quarter have already surpassed the airlines’ seat capacity in the 2019 first quarter, according to Hopper, while Europe has recovered 94% of its estimated seats out of the U.S. With huge demand for Europe this summer and likely the autumn, Hopper predicts that global airlines flying out of the U.S. will continue to rebuild their transatlantic networks to push capacity past 2019 levels in time for the holiday travel peak.
According to data compiled for Bloomberg in March by aviation analytics firm Cirium, seats on some of the fastest-growing transatlantic routes – including flights to London Gatwick, Milan and Paris – have already exceeded demand. Routes from London airports to Los Angeles shows 100,000 more seats this summer than last. “If that trend holds, basic supply and demand economics dictates that the fares will fall [this summer],” says Cirium spokesperson Mike Arnot.
Flying over Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Bloomberg photo by Cesar Rodriguez
Demand may be high throughout the warmest months, but even then travelers with flexibility and an eagle eye may be able to find pockets of lower prices before Labor Day. “There are too many people that want to fly this summer for the number of seats,” says Sumers. “But can you get a deal on a random Wednesday in August after half the country’s school kids have gone back to school?” The answer will be yes, he predicts.
His strategy for finding those fares is two-pronged, though it requires some industry knowledge. Besides going for off-peak departure dates – midweek rather than holiday weekends, for instance – he advises seeking out routes like that from Los Angeles to London, where growth in carrier capacity may have outpaced demand. Other routes he’s eyeing include those between New York and California and from West Coast cities to Hawaii.
Airlines’ fall schedules remain largely up in the air. “The airlines will want to wait to see how the bookings look in April, May, June before deciding whether to double down on September, October and November,” says Arnot.
Sumers says the change in fares will depend on travelers’ ability and desire to continue traveling as they did in 2022 when temperatures start to dip and work and school pick back up. “It’s unclear if that trend will continue,” he says. Demand will need to fall substantially for airlines to drop fares in September and October: A flight that’s 80% full with an average fare of $400 is still more profitable than a 100% full flight with an average fare of $300. But, as Sumers puts it, “if you insist on $400 fares and no one is biting, you end up with really, really low load factors.”
If that doesn’t happen in the fall, take heart. There’s an even bigger chance for lower fares in January and February of 2024. “Demand was soft [during those months] this year,” says Sumers. “If this trend continues, we will probably see the cheapest prices early in the [next] calendar year.”
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