The Holiday Fare: why flying home costs 31% more this year

Transcript

Four hundred and two dollars. That’s the average domestic round trip for Thanksgiving this year, up thirty-one percent. The booking app Hopper says holiday fares are at a ten-year high. And it says the reason is fuel.

The holiday fare. Christmas is no escape. Hopper puts that round trip at four hundred and fifty-two dollars, up twenty-three percent. And the Sunday after Thanksgiving is one of the priciest days of the year to fly: six hundred and four dollars.

Before the war. Go back to February. On the Gulf Coast, by the Energy Department’s count, a gallon of jet fuel cost two dollars and forty-three cents on February twenty-seventh. The next day, the United States and Israel struck Iran.

The spike. Within a day, a tanker was hit off Oman, and the Strait of Hormuz effectively shut. By March twentieth, jet fuel was four dollars and forty-five cents. Up more than eighty percent, in three weeks.

The fuel bill. For an airline, fuel is one of the biggest bills there is. The industry group I.A.T.A. expects fuel to be thirty-one percent of airline costs this year, up from twenty-five. It sees the world’s airlines paying nearly a hundred billion dollars more for fuel.

Fares take off. So fares took off. By May, airline fares in the consumer price index were nearly twenty-seven percent higher than a year before. And on May second, the budget carrier Spirit Airlines stopped flying, after it failed to get a federal rescue.

Fuel falls. fares don’t. Then fuel fell. On June twenty-second, Gulf Coast jet fuel was down to two dollars and seventy cents. Fares barely moved. In June they were still twenty-six and a half percent above a year earlier.

Fuel is back. And by September, fuel was climbing again. On September fifteenth, Gulf Coast jet fuel hit its high for the year: four dollars and seventy cents. This month, it has averaged twice last year’s price.

The airlines. The airlines say the bill is landing now. American Airlines says every penny a gallon adds about ten million dollars to its fuel bill each quarter. For the last three months of the year, that’s about a billion dollars more. Its chief executive says that could mean fewer flights.

Will it stick?. Will fares come down if fuel does? Airlines and analysts told the Associated Press that high fares could stick around, even if jet fuel falls. In June, when fuel dropped, fares stayed up.

The holiday bill. So here is the holiday bill. Four hundred and two dollars for Thanksgiving. Four fifty-two for Christmas. Six hundred and four on the Sunday after. Airline fares up twenty-three percent in August. And jet fuel at twice last year’s price.

How to pay less. What can you do? Hopper says book before Halloween. Fly out on the Monday before Thanksgiving, at about three hundred and seventy dollars. And don’t come home on the Sunday.

Next. The next number comes on October fourteenth, when September’s inflation report shows what fares did as fuel climbed back. Jet fuel just set its high for the year. The question is how much of it ends up on your ticket.