Lodi News-Sentinel

Airline ticket prices are rising and it’s only going to get harder to find cheap seats

- Kyle Arnold

DALLAS — Travel is back, but airline tickets aren’t quite what travelers remember.

Ticket costs for the upcoming summer travel season have already surpassed pre-pandemic levels from 2019 and airline executives are hinting that more price hikes could be ahead.

Roundtrip tickets this summer out of DFW Internatio­nal Airport and Dallas Love Field are 29% higher than they were during the same period in 2019 and flying to hot summer destinatio­ns such as Chicago and Las Vegas is 80% pricier, according to travel company Hopper.

That’s just the beginning of where airfares could be headed as passengers flood airports and airlines are pushing prices higher to compensate for elevated gas prices, rising labor costs and a shortage of pilots that’s limiting the number of flights.

“The short way to say it is we are seeing a lot of strength in the fare environmen­t with customers who frankly value the quality of product that we have and are willing to pay us to fly,” said American Airlines Chief Operating Officer Vasu Raja during the company’s recent earnings call. “So we’re encouraged by that and we see those trends going forward into the summer.”

For the nation as a whole, the average roundtrip ticket price in March was $540, up 41% from a year earlier, according to ticketing firm Arc. Prices haven’t been that high since June 2015.

CEOs at United Airlines and Delta Airlines said they haven’t seen pushback from consumers who are paying higher prices to travel this summer. In fact, United CEO Scott Kirby said airfares still have room to grow because of the inflation seen since the last time travel demand was close to this high in 2019.

“Another macro way to think about this is we’re just now getting back to 2019 levels of revenue,” Kirby said. “Arguably there’s another 16% to go.”

Travel experts are warning also that tickets are only going to get more expensive because the travelers are still in their peak buying window for the summer season and the cheapest seats are already gone.

“If you do see something that is a good deal, jump on it, because as more tickets are sold, flights are more expensive,” said Jeff Klee, CEO of Cheapair.com. Klee recommends that travelers buy tickets three weeks to four months in advance for the best prices, with the best deals coming about 75 days before travel.

Airlines are seeing cost pressures just like other segments of the economy facing logjams as the world emerges from the restrictio­ns and disruption­s of the COVID-19 pandemic.

But rising prices follow the principles of Economics 101 — there is too much demand and too little supply. Despite efforts to ramp up flights as quickly as possible for summer travel season, the nation’s four largest carriers are planning about 12% fewer flights between June and August than they did a year ago.

“Demand is as strong as we’ve ever seen it,” said American Airlines CEO Robert Isom.

Airlines would add more flights if they could, but employee unions are already warning that flight schedules have increased far too quickly after the struggles and cutbacks of the COVID-19 pandemic. Pilots and flight attendants are warning that flying too much could create massive waves of cancellati­ons and delays to go along with those big summer crowds.

Isom said the company is “sizing the airline for the resources that we have” and Delta President Glen Hauenstein said “the priority is to operate reliably and the other priority is do not get ahead of demand.”

 ?? SHAFKAT ANOWAR/DALLAS MORNING NEWS/TNS ?? Cheryl Steifel, of Dallas, carrying her four-month-old daughter Emery, checks in for their flight to Nashville as her husband Zach Steifel watches on Tuesday, April 19, 2022, at Dallas Love Field Airport in Dallas, Texas.
SHAFKAT ANOWAR/DALLAS MORNING NEWS/TNS Cheryl Steifel, of Dallas, carrying her four-month-old daughter Emery, checks in for their flight to Nashville as her husband Zach Steifel watches on Tuesday, April 19, 2022, at Dallas Love Field Airport in Dallas, Texas.

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