Airlines are offering more US-Europe service than ever — but don’t expect bargains

Flights to Europe will be plentiful this summer. Cheap airfare? Not as much. Airlines scheduled a near-record 51,000 flights from June through August from the US to Europe, according to airline data firm Cirium. The number of scheduled seats is the highest since 2018. Despite that increase in capacity across the Atlantic, fares are up sharply as airlines test travelers’ appetites for trips abroad. According to Hopper, US-to-Europe roundtrip flights are going for an average of $1,032, up 35% from last year and 24% from 2019. Average domestic U.S. airfare, by contrast, is down 15% from a year ago to $286 for a round trip, roughly in line with pre-pandemic levels. Executives at longtime operators of European service like Delta, newcomers like JetBlue, and budget upstarts like Norse Atlantic Airways and Play are all betting big that travelers will shell out for more international trips with the worst of Covid — and accompanying travel restrictions — in the rearview mirror. Airlines and airports have been racing to fill jobs in hopes of avoiding last summer’s chaos. “European travel was definitely still ramping up last summer,” said JetBlue CEO Robin Hayes in an interview with CNBC in late March. “I think a lot of people just didn’t fly last year, and now they’re looking to fly this year.” JetBlue is flying to London’s two largest airports from New York and Boston, and plans to launch service to Paris from New York in June. It plans to add service to Amsterdam this summer. Delta plans to offer a record number of seats from the U.S. to Europe, up 20% from last summer. The carrier will serve 69 markets in Europe, a spokesman said.<br/>