U.S.-Europe flight tickets have plummeted to levels never seen before. The 18-month long U.S. border closure, as well as the vaccination restrictions and the quarantines, have resulted in the cheapest airline tickets in 5 years, but it won’t last.
Right now, round-trip tickets from the United States to Lisbon, Barcelona, and Dublin are available for less than $500.
Flights from New York to Paris can also be found for less than $200 one way. And roundtrips from San Francisco to Zurich for less than $400, even for the ski season.
U.S. travelers have been also able to find roundtrip tickets to popular getaways such as Madrid for $427, which is equivalent to 33% less than a traveler would pay back in 2019 before the pandemic began.
Unfortunately for travelers, the travel industry foresees an airfare increase over the next few months.
In fact, as soon as the United States announced it will reopen to European and some Asian tourists in November, experts witnessed a 30% increase in searches for flights to/from Europe.
“In the next six months, there’ll be a window of opportunity where we’ll see really cheap flights to Europe,” said Adit Damodaran, an economist at travel booking app Hopper. “The airlines are going to be meeting higher demand with a ton of new flights.”
However, he thinks airline ticket prices to and from Europe will increase once travelers regain confidence in international travel.
The truth is that none a traveler wants to see themselves scrambling to rebook flights and change travel plans due to the lack of consistent rules and clarity about reopening dates.
For instance, White officials still refuse to provide an official reopening date rather than the confusing “early November”, when at press time, that moment would be in less than 4 weeks.
Austria’s ambassador to the United States told a citizen who reached out via Twitter on Sept. 24 that the reopening date would be Nov. 1. But so far, it has not been confirmed.