Flying home for the holidays will cost you more this year

People still looking to book trips home to visit family or take a vacation during the holidays need to act fast and prepare for sticker shock. Airline executives say that based on bookings, they expect huge demand for flights over Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s. Travel experts say the best deals for airfares and hotels are already gone. On social media, plenty of travelers think they are being gouged. It’s an understandable sentiment when government data shows that airfares in October were up 43% from a year earlier, and US airlines reported a combined profit of more than $2.4b in Q3. Part of the reason for high fares is that airlines are still operating fewer flights than in 2019 even though passenger numbers are nearly back to pre-pandemic levels. “Fewer flights and more people looking to head home or take vacation for the holidays means two things: Prices will be higher, and we will see flights sell out for both holidays,” says Holly Berg, chief economist for travel-data provider Hopper. Some travelers in Europe are booking shorter trips, according to Axel Hefer, CEO of Germany-based hotel-search company Trivago. “Hotel prices are up absolutely everywhere,” he said. “If you have the same budget or even a lower budget through inflation, and you still want to travel, you just cut out a day.” Hotels are struggling with labor shortages, another cause of higher prices. Glenn Fogel, CEO of Booking Holdings, which owns travel-search sites including Priceline and Kayak, says one hotelier told him he can’t fill all his rooms because he doesn’t have enough staff.<br/>