Why airline tickets cost so much these days

Matthew Kepnes, who runs a budget travel website called Nomadic Matt, wrote an article explaining why airline tickets cost so much these days, what leads to their price increases, and what consumers can do to find cheaper flights.

With fewer planes, less competition, and higher capacity, airlines can charge a lot more for tickets. There’s nothing to stop them and they don’t need to lower prices. United CEO Jeff Smisek said that only now are airfares priced appropriately. When you have a CEO say something like that, it means prices are not going to go down anymore, but only up.

According to Rick Seaney of farecompare.com, “Before 2008, things were in the favor of the passengers. After the 2009 crisis, the scale of justice tipped towards the airlines.”

Why Your Airplane Ticket is So Expensive