How Cheap Is Air Travel Today?

[Seat62K]

There continues to be a lot of interest in ticket prices, as evidenced by one current, popular thread. Elsewhere on this website posters have commented on the "taxes, fees and surcharges" issue, with Ryanair attracting some of the most negative contributions.

My perception is that in real terms (i.e., after removing inflation) flying for those in the UK is - generally speaking - cheaper today than, say, ten, twenty or thirty years ago. And this is despite very high fuel prices.

I was fortunate recently to come across some invoices for trips on charter flights. These went back decades. I chose one in particular, from 1988, to share with ppruners. This charter "seat only" was sold to me by Thomson Holidays. It was from Gatwick to Alicante and return. The dates of travel were 31 August and 7 September (i.e., almost exactly twenty years ago). The fare was £143.81 (this includes a surcharge - for fuel? - of 81p). This will have been booked months in advance and I am confident that it was the lowest available fare for this route and these dates.

I looked at Retail Prices Index data and, interestingly, over the twenty years since September, 1988 prices have increased by around 100%. So, if the fare had kept pace with inflation, it would have been roughly £290 for travel this August/September.

Furthermore, it is well-known that average earnings have, generally, increased faster than inflation, so many of today's air fares represent even greater value when calculated in terms of how long one has to work to earn the equivalent of the fare.

I travel regularly between London and Alicante but do not have a late August/early September, 2008 fare for comparison (and in any case, it's just one route) but the cost of return trips I've purchased in the last year for travel on this route have been in the range £20 (Ryanair) to £48 (also Ryanair).

I hope that my comments generate some discussion. In particular, it would be interesting if others have infomation on fares for other routes and for business and first class travel as well.

P.S. I accept that my comparisons with Ryanair fares are somewhat unfair as I'm not, strictly speaking, comparing like-with-like. The Ryanair prices quoted above involve web check in, hand luggage only and electron card payment (and, of course, my Monarch flights in August and September, 1988 would have included food in both directions) but I think my general point is still valid.

[Globaliser]

I haven't got all the details here, but at home I have pretty much all of the ticket receipts for my regular flights between London and Hong Kong in the late 1970s and early 1980s. I'm going from memory, but I think that most of them were in the £400-600 bracket. These were advance purchase tickets bought ages ahead of time because they matched term/holiday dates.

These days, you'd feel slightly ripped off if you had to pay £600 in 2008 money for an economy ticket to Hong Kong bought well in advance!

[Saintsman]

As you said, you're not comparing like with like. The likes of Ryanair and Easyjet fly the most up to date aircraft that are more reliable, fuel efficient and need less maintenance.

Of course those that do not have modern fleets still have to compete and charge fares that are losing them money, hence the problems we have just seen over the last few days.

With competition out of the way, I'm sure the above two airlines will not be so cheap in future....

[BladePilot]

"Cheap as Chips" as they say. Been in the business all my working life and it never fails to amaze me when I can go online these days and find fares to the Middle East from UK & Ireland for just over €400 euro rtn in economy and fares from UK & Ireland to the Far Esat (Manila as example)for just over €700 euro rtn.

I bet when Freddie Laker started SkyTrain he never thought his longhaul prices would be beaten a couple of decades later!

[manintheback]

Flying is eceptionally cheap compared to say 20+ years ago. Remember APEX, Super APEX and all that - not to mention the 'illegal' bucket shops around Earls Court we all used in those days. Not staying a Saturday night? ouch triple the price straight away.
Well remember a long weekend to Barcelona back in the mid 80's cheapest ticket available at many a months notice was over £300.

[BladePilot]

manintheback,
Ah. the memories, The BA SuperShuttle and the fantastic idea that they could sell tickets onboard just like a bus!

Back in the 70's and 80's the inclusive holiday companies who sold you a 'virtual' package which included an accommodation voucher for a room that never actually existed, the first truly 'seat only' non scheduled operators. A novel way to get around the ridiculous legislation which was strangling the business.
I believe Stelios (he of the Big Orange) resurrected the idea when he hit trouble with the Swiss authorites for having the balls to go head to head with their 'protected' state airline on the Geneva/Zurich to Barcelona. easyJet had to sell you a 'package' which included the seat, a voucher for a free tent and a tent pitch at some obscure camping site plus a voucher for a coach transfer on arrival in BCN I don't believe anyone ever bothered to collect their free tent!

[PAXboy]

I agree that the overall cost of flying today is much lower in real terms than it was 10 and 20 years ago.

Throughout my 41 years of paxing, the long haul route I know best is LHR~JNB. Twenty years ago it (generally) cost about £550 pounds to make the round trip in Y. When VS joined the route, it dropped for a bit but the new demand (post 1994 elections) meant that prices rose again. When any friend or relative (in either country) asked me what the cost was going to be my reply was: "About £550 pounds for a direct and something less for an indirect" Now, as then, the obvious indirects were LH, KL, AF. Later, they were joined by some dog-leg ones such as Olympic, Turkish, Swiss and now Emirates, Qatar and Etihad.

I have just checked prices for two weeks in mid November in Y. One well known web site quoted eight indirects from 447 to 680 so avg = £566. The three directs are 578, 802, 858 = £746.

So I suggest that prices are only slightly up (due fuel) and the indirects market remains as competitive as ever. I do not have receipts from 20 years ago but I know from countless enquiries and adverts over the years that these are the prices I would expect and I could go direct for £578 or indirect for £130 less. Given a (direct) round trip mileage of nearly 10,000 miles? Something like (crudely) 0.0578 ppm? That is good!!

[pzu]

In '72/73 booking with/through DNATA

Open Economy approx £300, 28 Day Economy approx £200 both either BA, Gulf or MEA

Booked through local agent Kanoo - Sharjah??? Syrian Arab approx £120 or even £100 if over weekend

So I guess today's EK or KLM rates are about the same

PZU - Out of Africa (retired)

[Llademos]

Just booked UK-Dublin-UK, two people

£4 return (total, for two), including taxes, fees and charges. :eek:

Ll

[The SSK]

BladePilot: I bet when Freddie Laker started SkyTrain he never thought his longhaul prices would be beaten a couple of decades later!

The Laker Skytrain London-New York was priced at £59 for every seat on the aircraft ($99 on the return journey). I don't think today's prices, including fuel surcharge, passenger duty, security charges etc come anywhere near that - even allowing for inflation.

[Romeo India Xray]

I first came to Riga almost 12 years ago. A friend called me and I booked on a whim - the Y class ticket with the only carrier at the time (Riair out of LGW) was just under 200 GBP (including the obligatory Sat night stay). Then BA showed up on the scene, Riair vanished into the abyss and the ticket price rose for my next visit (a year later) to 280 GBP where it stayed until 2004 when Ryanair showed up (on a sidenote, I made the trip about 30 times during that period in a valiant attempt to send myself broke).

Thanks to FR, BA are now no longer on the route and the national carrier are only able to serve one flight a day to LGW - not good for me to get ID tickets as my folks live in Staffordshire and Shropshire. The benefit, FR expanded to about half a dozen UK destinations from RIX and I now pay no more than 50GBP return inclusive of taxes .... except ....

Trying to compare like for like, last year I had to do a lot of commuting between the UK and LV at short notice. It was always cheaper to go 1 stop via AMS with KL instead of paying my former 280GBP for a SINGLE with FR. KLM at a weeks notice were typically in the 150 GBP return bracket with 200 being the top - alas, I tried this a few weeks ago and it was over 250 through AMS compared to my ID ticket of 50 GBP and the ballache of getting from LGW.

On balance - flying is cheap! :ok:

RIX

[Michael SWS]

The Laker Skytrain London-New York was priced at £59 for every seat on the aircraft ($99 on the return journey). I don't think today's prices, including fuel surcharge, passenger duty, security charges etc come anywhere near that - even allowing for inflation.I think, if you do the sums, today's prices are significantly lower than Laker's if you allow for inflation.

The prices you quote suggest a round-trip fare of about £110 on Laker's Skytrain - and that was for a standby ticket with no guarantee of a place. That is equivalent to about £600 in 2008 prices. (The RPI in summer 1976 was about 40, whereas in mid-2008 it was 216 - source (http://www.wolfbane.com/rpi.htm)).

Earlier this year I flew from London to New York (and back) on BA for £219 including all taxes and charges, and even now it is possible to find similar flights for £299. That compares very well indeed.

The first time I flew to New York, in April 1987, I got a rock-bottom fare of £240 with Kuwait Airways. The fare has hardly changed at all in 20 years.

[happyjack]

Well 20 years ago I paid more than £1000 for a return economy flight to Australia. In the 20 years since I have never paid so much. Usually £600-£700 and 2 weeks ago with a hefty fuel surcharge of >£200 I still paid less than £900.
Have a look also at pilots' income over the last 20 years. Very closely follows the trend downwards! :{
Ever decreasing standards throughout I am afraid.:=