Holiday airline ticket prices rise as service cuts continue
Airlines are still trimming flight schedules in smaller cities this season as more passengers face higher fares, fuller planes and crowded airports.
Airlines’ service cuts that ramped up this summer show no sign of relenting this holiday season, leaving more travelers likely to pay higher fares for fuller planes at crowded airports.
Service has been slashed in half from pre-pandemic levels at 59 small and regional U.S. airports, according to the Regional Airline Association, largely because of pilot shortages and high fuel costs. As of last month, 112 airports had lost at least a third of their flights, the RAA’s review of flight schedules shows, out of 430 U.S. airports with scheduled passenger service.
“The drastic decline between 2019 and 2022 is dramatic and, if not unprecedented, only rivaled by post-9/11 loss,” said Faye Malarkey Black, the RAA’s president and CEO. And while dozens of small cities receive federal subsidies to support air travel through the long-running Essential Air Service program, Malarkey Black said even 29 of those communities are facing potential cutbacks due to pilot shortages.
“And I believe the knife is still falling,” she added, with more reductions expected by year’s end.
Americans already face pricier airfares this season. The travel platform Hopper has forecast Thanksgiving and Christmas airfares to be the highest in five years, with domestic round-trip tickets averaging $350 over Thanksgiving and $463 at Christmas. Overall, airfares were up by a whopping 43% in October from the same month a year ago, the latest inflation data show.
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