4th April, 2022
The travel industry is keenly evaluating current trends related to the flight search activity as well as the way airfares are shaping up, and how the same is helping airlines in cost recovery.
With travel restrictions lifting up in certain markets, the increase in connectivity is also helping in stabilising demand-supply balance. There is still significant pent-up demand as far as the Trans-Pacific market is concerned (with the reopening of many major Asian countries). On the other hand, there are also concerns about how the Russia-Ukraine war continues to impact the industry. Also, jet fuel prices will have a noteworthy influence on long-haul international flights as well, resulting in higher airfare.
A report by CNBC has highlighted an interesting trend – travellers are willing to pay for “premium” offerings.
While Singapore Airlines indicated that business-class seats are selling out before the economy seats and demand for “upper-deck cabins” (referring to A380, the New York-Singapore route) “has been strong”, Delta also shared that the airline is also looking at the “premium products”.
Pricing trends
In its Consumer Airfare Index Report – Q2 2022, hopper has projected that international airfare is tipped to match 2019 prices through May before rising toward $940/round-trip in June, amounting to a 15% increase from current prices and reaching about 5% above 2019 prices in June, before declining seasonally into the fall.
Other highlights:
- As for the booking pattern, the company shared that travellers continue to book closer to their dates of travel relative to pre-pandemic 2019 in an environment where there can be greater uncertainty about how the pandemic and corresponding travel restrictions may develop in the coming months.
- International capacity remains down ~25% from this time in 2019, which is a slight improvement from being 28% down last quarter.
By Ai Team
