Cheap airfares are hard to find, and it might not get much easier in 2023. Between staffing shortages, aircraft delays and airlines’ conservative schedules after costly travel meltdowns, available seats are limited. Airlines are also passing along higher fuel prices and other costs to customers, keeping ticket prices elevated. But travelers, at least so far, are willing to pay the price. “Holiday flights are going to be expensive once again,” said Scott Keyes, founder of flight-deal site Scott’s Cheap Flights. “The pricing power has shifted back to the airlines for winter holiday travel.” Domestic airfares peaked in May, according to fare-tracker Hopper, but they’re on the rise for the holidays compared with last year. Domestic airfare deals over Thanksgiving are averaging $274, up 19% from 2021, while domestic roundtrips over Christmas are going for $390, up 40% from last year, Hopper says. The three biggest US airlines — Delta, United and American — each reported profits and record revenue for Q3. They all expect to remain profitable through the end of the year, as strong bookings and spending on co-branded credit cards continue. It’s a far cry from early in the Covid pandemic when travel collapsed and the industry was careening toward record losses. Airlines were propped up by $54b in taxpayer aid to weather the crisis and urged workers to take buyouts. “Demand has not come close to being quenched by a hectic summer travel season,” Delta CEO Ed Bastian said on the carrier’s quarterly call last week. Bookings have remained resilient despite high inflation and rising interest rates, as consumers refuse to give up getaways, and some even find new ways to travel thanks to more relaxed office attendance policies.<br/>
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Armed with mountains of data, artificial intelligence is emerging as an important tool for airlines to find the ideal fares to charge passengers, helping them squeeze out as much revenue as possible as the industry emerges from its biggest crisis. Fed by data on everything from Internet searches and Covid-19 outbreaks to weather forecasts and football results, computers are learning how everyday life influences demand for flights. In its most advanced form, AI blows up the arcane airfare codes and pricing bands that have straight-jacketed ticket sales for decades. By weighing up the data, technology providers can determine how much passengers are willing to pay for tickets and continuously reprice seats. Calculating fares using AI can lift an airline’s revenue by 10 per cent or more, according to Fetcherr, an Israeli startup that operates a live-pricing engine. “We are able to determine at every price point how many people will buy a ticket,” said Roy Cohen, CEO and co-founder of Fetcherr, whose directors include Alex Cruz, a former CE of British Airways. “It’s very hard to hide from a system like us.” Brazilian carrier Azul in September announced the first public trial of Fetcherr’s demand prediction and pricing technology. Azul did not reply to e-mail messages asking for more information about the trial. Fetcherr’s demand simulations are so accurate, according to Mr Cohen, that fares determined by algorithms for flights six months away barely change by the time the plane takes off. “Almost spot on,” he said. “Sometimes to the cent.”<br/>
The lack of scientific clarity on the impact of non-CO2 effects is a risk for commercial aviation as it seeks to address its environmental footprint, according to speakers at the Aviation Carbon 2022 conference in London on 17 October. Citing the now widely adopted target for commercial aviation to reach net-zero CO2 emissions by 2050 – which was rubber-stamped at a governmental level during the recent ICAO assembly via agreement on a long-term aspirational goal (LTAG) – speakers cautioned that factors such as nitrogen oxides (NOx) and contrails might eventually draw more focus, should scientists suggest with confidence that they have a significant warming impact. “When we look at these [net-zero] roadmaps we’re mostly focusing on the CO2 effect and largely leaving out the non-CO2 effects,” says Siyi Hao, a sustainable aviation specialist at consultancy Roland Berger. He describes this as a “potential risk for our planning”, despite there being good reason for the lack of commitment on the issue so far, given that “we don’t really have a perfect scientific understanding of it”. That is because achieving better scientific understanding might heighten the sustainability hurdles for aviation. “We speak to the leading academics in the world, and our understanding so far is that when we take into consideration all the non-CO2 effects and look at the global warming potential of aviation… it could get as high as three times CO2 alone,” Hao suggests. Tim Johnson, director of UK-based NGO the Aviation Environment Federation, reminded delegates at the conference that the Paris Agreement created a goal around limiting the rise in global temperatures – of which CO2 emissions are just one contributing factor when it comes to aviation. Johnson says that during the recent ICAO assembly, his federation was sufficiently concerned to argue, unsuccessfully, that the UN body should launch a process aimed at assessing non-CO2 effects ahead of its next gathering. “We didn’t necessarily want [the LTAG] to recognise non-CO2, but it is really clear that Paris is a temperature-based goal and that non-CO2 impacts from aviation have temperature implications,” Johnson says. “Between now and 2050, we have to figure that out.” <br/>
US transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg is insisting that airlines, not the FAA, are primarily responsible for last summer’s US air travel meltdown, saying airlines scheduled more flights than they could staff. Buttigieg, speaking to The Washington Post on 18 October, also expressed frustration that airlines were short staffed after taking billions of dollars in pandemic aid specifically intended to keep workers on the job. Following a summer heavy with delays and cancellations, some airline executives deflected blame to the FAA, saying it had too few controllers to handle traffic. “The issue that we’ve had this summer… is air traffic control staffing,” United Airlines chief executive Scott Kirby said in September. US DOT secretary Buttigieg shot down that assertion on 18 October. “Certainty not,” he says. “The majority of [delays and cancellations] are not the result of air traffic control staffing”. US airline flight cancellation rates typically hover around 1%. That rate shot to 4% on some weekends last summer – a swing that made “all the difference in the world in terms of whether the system is able to catch up and keep up”, Buttigieg says. He attributes the problem to “unrealistic” flight scheduling by airlines at a time of rapidly rebounding demand for air travel following Covid-induced travel restrictions. Those same restrictions led carriers to significantly reduce their workforces, and in recent months many US airlines have said they have too few pilots. Last summer, Buttigieg says, carriers scheduled more flights than they could operate. “Certainly, [airlines] need to be prepared to service the tickets they sell. We didn’t see that.”<br/>
Stansted Airport has accepted an offer of GBP2.05m to cover its legal costs following a High Court battle. The international airport won an appeal against Uttlesford District Council in 2021, allowing it to increase passenger capacity to 43m per year. The airport, in Essex, rejected the council's previous package of GBP1.4m. The local authority's improved offer was voted through at a council meeting. An airport spokesperson confirmed it had accepted the council's offer. Councillors from the Residents for Uttlesford group, which runs the council, have said they hoped the offer would bring an end to the saga. Opposition councillors criticised the administration for not putting together a stronger legal case. The payment from the council is expected to wipe out its Strategic Initiative Fund and eat away at GBP437,000 from its reserves.<br/>