Holiday Travel Expenses are Sky High this Season
With inflation at generational highs, it is no surprise that this holiday travel season be more costly for consumers. This is clear in the price of goods, but also includes travel. The average plane ticket price is up 40% from 2021, according to CNN.
Tyler Miller, Deputy Aviation Director at Corpus Christi International Airport says flight passenger volume has increased over last year. At the same time, many aviation companies cut staff due to the pandemic, meaning there will likely be delays closer to holiday dates. See his comments on what this all means for holiday travelers.
Tyler’s Thoughts:
“The aviation industry still hasn’t fully recovered since the COVID pandemic hit in March of 2020, but passenger numbers are slowly and steadily rising. In fact, we expect to see about four and a half million Americans hit the skies during this Thanksgiving holiday. That’s about an 8% increase over 2021 levels.
So, we’re slowly approaching the pre-COVID levels throughout the year. Now, this is gonna put some stress on the airlines this holiday season, and especially considering that many of them had to downsize their operation in order to survive the pandemic. So, many airlines had to lay off pilots and park aircraft and shrink their operations down to a manageable level, and now that demand is increasing, their capacity isn’t necessarily able to increase at the same rate.
So, we do expect to see some delays and some flight impacts because of the increased demand; not only through Thanksgiving, but also into the Christmas holiday as well. This can be exacerbated by extreme weather and other traffic impacts throughout the country that we don’t even see today and be able to forecast that today.”
