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Why flight fares this year are SO expensive?

Madrid, Spain
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Why flight fares this year are SO expensive?
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I was planning a trip to the USA this Summer (around end of June). The idea was to fly to Denver from London (United Kingdom) and make a road trip. We cancelled our plans because the ticket is no less than £1000 or $1500. Obviously that is not the price, normally should not be more than £600. We tried to check prices to other airports like Salt Lake City or changing the dates with no luck. I am not sure why air fares reached that expensive price when fuel being cheaper at the moment. I guess will have to avoid flying this Summer and drive within Europa to take advantage of fuel prices. Are you experiencing the same thing?

Lynnwood, Washington
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1. Re: Why flight fares this year are SO expensive?
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Flights are expensive this summer! I think it has more to do with careful capacity controls that limit supply vs. demand than fuel pricing.

Did you consider flying to Seattle or Los Angeles and then taking Sourhwest Airlines or other budget carrier on to Denver? Did that help on pricing at all?

Kent, United Kingdom
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2. Re: Why flight fares this year are SO expensive?
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I try to buy my flights in the New year sales

right now on BA.com flights to Denver in June are from £780 return

Bingley, United...
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for Edinburgh
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< Why flight fares this year are SO expensive? >

I recall similar questions for the past several years.

Fuel price drops BTW would reduce the fare by a few quid at most, certainly not several hundred pounds

Indianapolis...
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Prices have really jumped the past few years. It wasn't long ago we could easily fly from here in the Midwest of the USA to Cancun or other Mexico cities for $350 US. Now it's closer to $700..

A flight from here to Nice in June cost me $1,467 (£900). We paid around $1,200 to Paris two years ago (£780).

Madrid, Spain
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I tried Seattle, Chicago, Salt Lake City, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Dallas, Rapid City, Jackson Hole, nothing. I tried using a VPN, different sites, airlines, 2 stops.

Edinburgh, United...
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I booked flights to LA in business class for July for just over £1k

This was in the BA sale in January and involve a short hop to Dublin first to commence the journey

for that slight inconvenience I got flights that were £100 each cheaper than economy from London and £5.5k cheaper than the same journey from London

It is worth looking at Dublin as a departure, you can do a return to DEN 24th June to 7th July for £515, would obviously need to factor in getting to Dublin and back but if you have any Avios and qualify for RFS you can do that for 9,000 points and £35

Airlines will charge what they believe people will pay, although you do not want to pay £1,000+, others will (if nobody was booking at this fare, the fare would be lower)

Motherwell, United...
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7. Re: Why flight fares this year are SO expensive?
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Not all flight prices have gone up. Our flights to Bangkok are the cheapest we've ever paid and this is our eighth visit going back to 2005. £432 each in May.

Why not try Asia for a change.

Surrey UK
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Yeah. 7-15 years ago i was paying about £300 to fly from London to USA (E and W coasts) and about £550 to fly to SE Asia. All flights April and direct.

Now the flights to the USA have almost doubled while those to SE Asia are about the same.

But you can pick up the occasional bargain in the sales.

Chicago
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<Obviously that is not the price>

What is that supposed to mean? The price is what the price is, whatever the going rate is. What you paid before has absolutely no relevance to the price of tickets now. As has been stated in many prior threads, the airlines have been reducing capacity and flying full planes. The airlines have pretty much publicly stated that fares aren't being reduced due to fuel oil being cheaper.

UK
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10. Re: Why flight fares this year are SO expensive?
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normally should not be more than £600

=====

Aside from the fact that that doesn't make sense, there is no "normal", the price is what the price is, in summer I would certainly have expected much more than £600.

I didn't do as well as Carol, but I got business class flights to Las Vegas a few weeks back in the sale for £2k which are currently £3K, so it also depends when you buy, and of course if you are willing to go through the extra inconvenience then you can get deals out of not just Dublin, but also Amsterdam, Paris as well, though note that proportionally its a MUCH bigger saving for business class or first than for economy where IME the extra flights and possible overnight hotel and longer duration and hassle dont make it worthwhile at all.

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