In the United States, airfares increased a record 10.2% in April 2021 compared to the previous month.
The days of cheap airfare are ending as the US vaccine supply triggers high demand for travel following lockdown measures.
The spike in trips to visit friends and family, along with scheduled flights remaining below 2019 levels, means that traveler demand is outpacing seat supply.
That translates to an increase in travel costs for the peak summer season as operators reboot revenue management tools, which increase online rates along with increased demand, after a year in the that airplanes often flew with empty rows of seats.
“I’m not very satisfied with the prices,” said Jackson Ralston, 29, of Lake Dallas, Texas, who monitors Google Flight fare alerts daily to attend a friend’s bachelor party this summer. Current weekend ticket prices from Dallas to Manchester, New Hampshire are around $ 600.
“I’m debating whether or not to fly to a nearby city there and just rent a car and drive,” he said.
The impact on consumers’ wallets is driving airlines that have had to rely on billions of dollars in federal aid to weather the collapse in demand caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Coupled with last year’s deep cost cuts, the fare recovery is making airlines including Delta Air Lines Inc. and United Airlines Holdings Inc. feel more confident that their accounts in the red will end in the third quarter.
In April, airfares increased a record 10.2% from the previous month, reflecting an increase in demand as locked-in consumers seek to return to flying.
After falling in January, when the pandemic reached some of its worst levels in the US, airline traffic has doubled. Last week, an average of nearly 1.7 million people took flights daily, including 1.86 million on Sunday, a new post-pandemic record, according to data from the Transportation Security Administration. Passenger levels are still 30% below the same period in May 2019.
Compared to the first-quarter level, the average round-trip fare is up 12% to $ 357.36, according to TripActions Inc., a corporate travel manager that collects fares from global ticket distribution systems. Those three months are a landmark for America’s summer shopping season, as people plan vacations and weekend trips.
Follow the news of El Espectador on Google NewsThe price increases are likely to stick, making the ultra-low rates of a year ago a distant memory. In the U.S. domestic market, rates will average $ 283 from June to August, an increase of 35% from the previous year and just 4% below the summer of 2019, based on a May 18 rate forecast. from Hopper Inc., a travel research and analysis company.
“In the domestic market, I expect rates to reach 2019 levels” sometime between August and October, said Adit Damodaran, an economist at Hopper, based in Montreal.
Last year, billions of dollars in federal aid kept airlines afloat and required them to maintain certain levels of service. As a result, the supply of seats did not fall as fast as the demand.
Now airlines are making up for lost time by tapping into consumer appetites for leisure travel, primarily for domestic flights and popular beach destinations in the Caribbean and Latin America.
