Rising cost of travel

I've just been looking at booking a flight from Vancouver to Glasgow for next June. My wife's neice is graduating in nursing and my wife wants to attend her graduation. We were in Scotland in May of this year and the flights were $1100 CAD each return. For next June on the same carrier, the price is going to be $1400 each. So a difference of $600 for the two of us. That's a big jump. Obviously the prime reason is fuel costs.

It was only in October of last year that I could have booked a Vancouver to Paris (one way) flight with this same carrier (Zoom) for $500 all in. Are we going to have to get used to higher flying costs? Psychologically, that will be difficult for many people to do.

I'm not convinced that higher air fares are here to stay, or not across the board at any rate.

Many airlines are not viable on any rational stand-alone basis, but are supported by governments for prestige or other reasons.

The economies of many countries are partially or almost completely dependent on fly-in tourism and I suspect that governments will go to extraordinary lengths to shore up their tourist sector.

Also, there is now a tremendous incentive for Boeing, Airbus and others to develop more fuel-efficient fleets.

That said, there's no doubt that rising costs are already reshaping air travel. On Air Canada, and I'm sure many others, you now have the privilege of printing your own boarding pass and baggage tickets, packing your own lunch and loading your baggage on the conveyor.

Just send your wife. Its her niece. You can stay home and save up for the huge retroactive carbon footprint tax Gordon Campbell may be getting ready for you.

This is good news. On a recent trip to Europe for over 4 months my wife and I noticed the tremendous amount of tourists at all the tourist sites in parts of Spain, all of Italy and Paris. There is just too many tourists, especially school kids and "teeny boopers" around. If high costs will keep some of them home then I'll be a happy man.

www.itasoftware.com You don’t buy the tickets through them, they just find a fantastic price and then you call a travel agent or directly to the airline to purchase the ticket. You do have to register, but you won't get spam because of it.

They find a reasonable price Ruth. I just checked a Edinburgh to Zurich for example and they were the same price as BMI Baby's own site. I also suspect that they don't cover all the LCCs such as Easyjet etc. I've yet to find one site that covers everything. It would be nice but I don't think it exists.

In any case, the prices are going up. Packerjohn, does have a point though. It may help keep the rif-raff away from some of my favourite places.

Meddler, I suggested that but then my wife mentioned she wanted to tack on a couple of weeks in Switzerland and a few days in Paris. You didn't really think she was going to let me off that easily did you?

Jb, I do hope you realize that there are now many airlines who put prices UP nearer to the departure date, never down. They sell the cheaper seats first. Last minute deals are become harder and harder to find. The early bird gets the worm more often these days.

If you want to keep travelling its something you've just got to build in to your budget. I can't afford to travel every year any more. The trip I'm planning for next year looks like it will cost well over $3000 in airfare alone, and that will be the cheap ticket. The last trip cost either just under or just over $3000. The cost of the airfare is why I prefer to travel for extended periods. Unfortunately at the moment I can't.

I remember going from Minneapolis to Tampa in 1963---it was a big deal for us then. After calling NW Airlines endlessly for the cheapest price, the round trip cost $195 for a jet, and $159 for a jet-prop (we took the cheaper one!) In today's dollars, that would be about $1500 - $2,000 and yet the price now (for a jet!) is below $500. So air travel is really MUCH cheaper than it used to be.

Lor is correct - it is amazing that airfares have remained so low so long. It has also meant that a lower class of traveller has joined the rest. I even see travel shows on OLN where the young traveller appears not to have the money to buy decent clothing, is poorly educated and scarcely has any serious information about what country he/she is in. They focus on food and markets,parties and beaches and know and care little about anything that might exhaust their limited mental capacities. Maybe it is time for airfares to increase.

Yes prices are lower than in the past, in income terms. Back in 1963 people worked for $50 a week. But that will not have any affect on how people react to rising costs psychologically. People have become used to airfares going down, not going up. You can't apply logic to an emotional issue.

too many tourists, especially school kids and "teeny boopers" (sic)
keep the rif-raff+ (sic) +away
a lower class of traveller

Like it or not, we are all tourists unless we stay in one place long enough to become part of the community. I find it funny when tourists visit popular tourist destinations and complain about all the other tourists clogging the place up. And it also sounds snobbish and mean to want to restrict travel to the relatively rich.

Excluding the minority of tourists who cause trouble, I don't think there's such a thing as a superior class of tourist. Some love beaches and parties. Who's to say they get less out of their holiday than someone who prefers ruins and art galleries? Some pride themselves on knowing exactly how much a local taxi should cost, and haggle over a few cents to avoid being "ripped off". Others give it little thought and are happy as long as it's cheaper than at home. We're all different. Loud party-goers are annoying, but so are travel snobs.

You have always paid a high premium to book that far in advance. My goodness, June! It's only August. As a rule of thumb, you get the best prices by booking around 8 weeks in advance, not 10 months in advance. An airline assumes that if you book 10 months advance, it's a "got to be there" like a big fat destination wedding, and they charge accordingly. You are just getting anxious way too far in advance.

Is it wicked to add that my trip to Paris was all-in ROUND-TRIP $300? Tee hee.

Not from Vancouver it wasn't peachfront.

www.kayak.com

With password, they will keep you updated as to cheapest flight.
You can choose 3 days b4 or after your chosen date, for better daily bid.

Again, kayak doesn't cover all airlines. Sometimes they have a better price and sometimes I have found a better price elsewhere.

But the point of the thread wasn't about where to find a better price. It was about how people will react to higher prices. How will the masses BEHAVE as a result of higher prices? By spending more time online searching than they did before? By not travelling as much? By travelling as often but shorter distances from home? That is the question.

That's three questions.

No, not from Vancouver, in my case from New Orleans, in another man's case from Biloxi. But the Paris run was a famous mileage run at the time and quite a number of people were getting the price by routing through DTW from different cities. Don't recall if Vancouver was one of the cities where you could originate, but there were quite a number. Ah, the glory days...January 2005! It seems a long time ago. But basic principles remain, and one of them is that it is WAY too early to book for a June flight if you want the best price. If you buying the trip in frequent flyer miles, that's different. Go ahead and book because the miles are about to be seriously devalued. (Check out Delta's proposed new award chart if you doubt me.) I've got a very crowded calendar now because of all of the award travel I've had to book before the new fees go into effect.

In answer to your more general question, as travel costs rise, no, folks won't hop on an airplane to watch the graduation of every niece (!) -- something once reserved for when it was your actual daughter. And let's be honest. An awful lot of people will be relieved that they can make an excuse and get out of "destination" weddings, baby showers, graduations, and other such tedious events. Every cloud has its silver lining, and that's the silver lining of inflated fuel prices. Be honest. Aren't you secretly tickled to have a reason to excuse yourself from this tedious-sounding trip? I won't be the one to tell the wife. :-)

What people will do is complain for a while and then it will gradually be accepted.

BTW what is the average percentage rise now?

For a lot of people, air fare costs are irrelevant.

Eight out of 10 Americans have never flown, according to Time, and of those eight, three, for a variety of reasons, could never be lured onto a plane.

I don't know what the comparable figures are for other countries, but I'd assume a higher proportion of Europeans, Australians and Japanese fly, and a much lower proportion of people from most other countries.

The main effect of much higher airfares, assuming they remain high, which is by no means certain, might be to prevent a lot of people from taking their first, and subsequent flights.

I'd also guess that business travel is going to take a big hit, especially with the the outlook for corporations so uncertain in many parts of the world.

That could mean some real bargains at the front of the plane.

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Agree with you wholeheartedly Xiang. I like to see a huge range of people have the opportunity to travel and make their own voyages of discovery. I did my first bouts of travel in my youth which developed in me a life long passion. I enjoy seeing my young nephews hugely enthusiastic about their ventures where their focus now is entirely different to mine. We all enjoy in a our different ways.

I just had a Zoom airlines flight go from $2200 to $2800 in 6 months. That's with booking well in advance (their pricing/business model is set up that way). So that's around 30% rory.

I went to Travelocity and saw SEA-GLA in June 09 for $1119 USD that includes taxes. Might be worth the trip down to SEA

The price I gave is for 2 people return froude1. Direct flights, good arrival and departure times. Believe me I know all the ways to get from the West Coast to the UK. Two years ago I could have got Vancouver-Glasgow return for around $6-700 with a little luck. A year ago I saw a Vancouver-Paris one way for $300 all in. In any event, one fare doesn't change whether costs overall are going up or not does it.

I'm just curious as to what people foresee happening due to rising fares. There is no question of whether they are rising or not.

What will happen? If you need to fly, you will fly. More people will holiday in their own country, although in my case that usually still involves flying. If you have a burning desire to travel you will just save every penny you can until you have enough to do what you want to do. If I lived somewhere like Europe I'd have more options but its not as though I can catch a train or a bus, even to the neighbouring countries.

I don't think you can just say if you need to fly, you will fly. It may reach a point where the average person simply cannot afford to fly. Given that there are whole generations now who are used to being able to fly somewhere for a vacation several times a year, how they will react may prove very interesting.

Even in what you are saying about yourself personally annD, you are still assuming you will be able to afford to travel if not perhaps quite as often. What if you cannot in the sense that a flight costs $5000 for example?

I think there may be major changes about to happen in the travel and tourism industries.

As I said earlier, flights can already cost close to $3,500 (including taxes) depending where I want to go (eg destinations in Africa), so it won't be very long before they reach $5,000. It will just take longer to save. The only time I can forsee not being able to travel is if I am not working and have less in retirement income than I hope to. Now I save between 2 nd 3 years, maybe it will take 5 years, maybe more. After I divorced, it took me 13 years to be in a financial position to travel overseas again.

If the cost of living increases to the extent where I can no longer save, that becomes a whole different issue.

Maybe some real numbers will help put this in perspective. The airline industry is forecasting a 7% decrease in seat sales by the end of this year. That is 59.4 MILLION less seats globally! An awful lot of people are not going to be flying.

Given that the average company works on a profit margin of 4-6%, what will that 7% decrease do to them? You can only restructure and cut jobs so much. What if maintenance is reduced to cut cost? More crashes? Less staff at check-in? Longer lines?

How about travel agencies? The final straw after the losses attributable to internet booking? Not a good time to be starting a job as a trainee travel agent. LOL

The question of what people will do if they can't afford to fly and what affect it will have on the travel and tourism industry is not just academic. If you can fairly reliably predict a shift in anything, there is money to be made. Whether it is selling stock in airlines and buying stock in bus companies or opening a small local tourist business in anticipation of increases in local tourism.

I saw that same article about less seats becoming available.The airlines will park their inefficent aircraft and will cut routes that earn little money.As far as travel agents go that's a field that has been getting squeezed since the internet became popular.Certain maintenence standards must be observed in most countrys or you can't land yor aircraft there I remember a couple of years ago a South American airline was denied landing rights at JFK because of maintenence questions of course all bets are off in under developed countries but thats always been the case.The airlines are still signing up for the new Airbus or Boeing planes and a Canadian airplane maker (name escapes me) seems to be doing well.Fares are up but I would bet that as travel declines to some tourist destinations ground accomodations should drop in price to partially offset your higher airfare.All in all the cost of an airline ticket is cheaper now then it was when I started flying in the 1950s (in real dollars)

in the 50s the airline industry like the telephone was strictly regulated...#1 reason why rates were so high for long distance & all seat classes

..now with deregulation you get great rates but have to do your homework cause the government isn't

....scary times for airlilne corporate decisions whose bottom line is the only line that matters

.

And almost the only bottom.

But safer than driving

Check out flights out of Seattle.
Last fall, I flew to Florida and out of Toronto, the taxes alone were more than the entire round trip flight including taxes, out of Detroit.
Granted, I live mid-way between Toronto and Detroit so it wasn't too hard for me to choose, eh?

I always buy tickets on my Visa card jb and can claim on the 'purchase protection' it provides. No money lost, just hassle to get it credited and of course I will have to find new flights.

One of the problems of course is that many of the LCCs use a business plan which sees seat prices rise as the departure date gets closer. The exact opposite of the 'last-minute' pricing that many people are used to. They do this in order to help cash flow. If they have people's money several months ahead of time then obviously they are making interest on that money until they have to spend it on fuel on the day the people fly so to speak.

If you are planning a trip that has a specific date (awedding or graduation to attend for example) that method works fine for the consumer. You get a lower price by booking sooner. But it also leaves you more open to what has happened with Zoom than booking at the last minute would. Last minute on another carrier might be as cheap or cheaper but of course there is no guarantee of you finding what you want at the last minute. Then you either miss the event you planned to attend or you pay a higher price. So there is no easy answer.

What this failure of Zoom does in terms of the topic of this post is simply provide more evidence of how things are changing. There are several other airlines no doubt on the verge of going bust and some of them are big names in the airline industry, it isn't just the little guys that are hurting. Alitalia just filled for bankruptcy protection as well.

Less airlines, more expensive fuel, higher priced tickets = less people flying.