This is why airline tickets prices are sky-high right now
For more than two years, the main topic of conversation pretty much everywhere has been about the impact of Covid-19. Now that the worst of the pandemic seems to be over and people are travelling more freely again, another hot topic is on the tips of everyone's tongues: expensive plane tickets. People are looking for flights - sometimes their first in years - in a rush of what's been termed "revenge travel". Internet searches show sky-high airfares for many routes, yet travellers with wanderlust are opting to stomach the higher costs after being grounded for so long. "The demand is off the charts," Delta CE Ed Bastian said at an industry conference last week, noting that fares this summer maybe 30 per cent higher than pre-pandemic levels. "It's coming with leisure, it's coming with premium customers, it's coming with business, it's coming with international. It doesn't matter what the category is." The trend is across geographies, though some places are more squeezed than others. Searches for a return economy-class ticket between Hong Kong and London on Cathay Pacific Airways in late June turn up prices as high as HK$42,051 (S$7,380), which is more than 5 times the typical cost before the pandemic. Direct flights between New York and London around the same time cost more than US$2,000 in economy. A Mastercard Economics Institute study found the cost of flying from Singapore was on average 27% higher in April than in 2019, while flights from Australia were 20% more. Increasingly, travellers are booking tickets months in advance as they're worried about the cost of buying at the last minute, said David Mann, chief economist for Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa at the institute.<br/>
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This is why airline tickets prices are sky-high right now
For more than two years, the main topic of conversation pretty much everywhere has been about the impact of Covid-19. Now that the worst of the pandemic seems to be over and people are travelling more freely again, another hot topic is on the tips of everyone's tongues: expensive plane tickets. People are looking for flights - sometimes their first in years - in a rush of what's been termed "revenge travel". Internet searches show sky-high airfares for many routes, yet travellers with wanderlust are opting to stomach the higher costs after being grounded for so long. "The demand is off the charts," Delta CE Ed Bastian said at an industry conference last week, noting that fares this summer maybe 30 per cent higher than pre-pandemic levels. "It's coming with leisure, it's coming with premium customers, it's coming with business, it's coming with international. It doesn't matter what the category is." The trend is across geographies, though some places are more squeezed than others. Searches for a return economy-class ticket between Hong Kong and London on Cathay Pacific Airways in late June turn up prices as high as HK$42,051 (S$7,380), which is more than 5 times the typical cost before the pandemic. Direct flights between New York and London around the same time cost more than US$2,000 in economy. A Mastercard Economics Institute study found the cost of flying from Singapore was on average 27% higher in April than in 2019, while flights from Australia were 20% more. Increasingly, travellers are booking tickets months in advance as they're worried about the cost of buying at the last minute, said David Mann, chief economist for Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa at the institute.<br/>
