There is a family chat that only wakes up when someone says the word “flights.” It woke up this week. A parent had searched a summer date we talked about last year and sent a screenshot that looked like a typing error. It was not a typing error.
On 21 April the BBC, using numbers from a consultancy called Teneo, said the cheapest economy tickets were 24% more expensive than a year earlier. A quarter more, for the same seat and the same dry air. The Iran war has forced airlines to fly longer ways round, burn more fuel, and lose capacity from Gulf carriers that used to fill a lot of those seats. Jet fuel has gone from about $85 to $90 a barrel to $150 to $200. London to Melbourne in June is 76% more than last year. Hong Kong to London is up 72%. UK airlines have asked the government for more flexibility on tax and airport slots if the conflict gets worse.
I am not booking Melbourne. I am looking at a screenshot and doing the kind of Maths that does not need a worksheet.
Fuel is a variable cost: the more you fly, and the longer you fly, the more you pay. When planes have to go around a war, the cost of each seat jumps. Capacity is the other half. If fewer airlines can use the short, cheaper paths, there are fewer seats on the routes people actually want. When supply shrinks and families still want to travel in June, the price does not stay polite just because the calendar says holiday.
Then there is dynamic pricing, which is a calm name for a restless thing. The fare is not a sticker on a shelf. It moves with how full the plane is, how late you left it, how nervous the airline is about fuel tomorrow morning. A “cheap” airline is not a promise. It is a starting number that can vanish while you still have three tabs open. I used to think that was a trick they pulled on people who book at midnight. It is also what happens when the underlying costs and the available seats both lurch at once.
I used to think a holiday price was mainly about how far you go. Now I think it is about airspace, and who is allowed to cross it, and how many barrels of fuel sit between a family chat and a yes. Distance did not change. The path did, and the path is what you pay for.
A cheap airline used to mean a lower starting number and a stricter bag. It still means that, except the starting number has been dragged up by fuel and by missing seats, so the word “cheap” is doing charity work. I opened a tab, closed it, and felt the same small pause my mum does in a supermarket.
We have not booked anything. That is a decision too. If the flight takes the extra quarter, something else in the summer does not happen. I did not type that into the chat. I just looked at the 24% and thought, this is what an external shock looks like when it buys a seat.