Cirium
has crunched the aviation numbers for 2023. And the news is so-so.
Cirium,
the analytics company, analyzed airfare trends for last year. Economy airfare
has generally increased since 2023 in North America and Europe, but is lower than
the U.S. inflation rate.
Talk
about a good news/bad news scenario.
“While
airfare has risen in nominal terms in U.S. and Europe, consumers will
appreciate that the increases are less than other consumables,” said Jeremy
Bowen, CEO of Cirium. “Cirium’s data teams will continue to monitor the impact
on fares of increased capacity in the market, despite challenges related to the
availability of aircraft, be it due to groundings, engine issues, or supply
chain constraints.”
The
data also found that there was an increase in transatlantic fares.
Domestic airfare increased by nine percent compared to 2019, the year before the pandemic, and this time frame is generally used as a barometer for the travel industry to compare itself.
Inter-European Airfare is Up 12 Percent
A nine percent increase over more than four years is good, especially when you consider that inter-European airfare is up 12 percent in the same time frame. U.S. domestic airfare fell four percent between August and December 2023.
For the North American portion of the analysis, Cirium data was collected from 13 U.S.-based airlines. The ticket prices used in the analysis were mostly economy fares.
The average U.S. domestic airfare by the 13 airlines was $179.25 in 2023, an increase of nine percent since the 2019 average of $164.63. Cirium also analyzed changes in the U.S. Consumer Price Index from data provided by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, where the inflation rate between 2019 and 2023 was 19 percent.
But
it got better in the waning months of 2023.
Beginning
in August 2023, airfares decreased by approximately four percent compared to
the equivalent months in 2022. Fares in December 2023 were nine percent lower
than in December 2022.
Fares
for flights within Europe are eight percent higher than in 2022 and 12 percent higher
than in 2019. The average airfare in Europe in 2023 was $104.58 compared to
$93.17. The average transatlantic economy fare in 2023 was $435.17, compared to
$410.75 in 2022 and $381.08 in 2019.
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