U.S. airline bookings drop 17% as fuel and ticket prices soar

U.S. airlines bookings dropped 17% in April from March according to a report published by Adobe. Despite this demand for domestic U.S. flights remains above 2019 levels, online ticket spending was up 23% over the same month in 2019 while bookings rose 5%. Prices are up 27% from 2019 and 8% higher than March this year, consumers spent $7.8 billion on domestic tickets in April, down 13% from the previous month.

Some of this can be attributed to rising fuel prices throughout the U.S., jet fuel prices have continued to spike because of the crude oil supply disruptions as a result of the Russia-Ukraine war, the national average price for a gallon of Jet-A was $4.35 a year ago, that is now up to $6.09 per gallon, almost a 30 percent rise. This has sent airfares soaring, at the start of this year the average cost of a round-trip domestic flight was $235, in April that has already gone up to $330, a 40 percent rise and and another 10 percent rise in May is expected bringing it up to $360.

Source: Platts, Datastream, IATA

Airlines such as Delta have said in their Q1 financial results that it paid an average of $2.79 per gallon of Jet-A, a 33 percent increase from Q4 2021, the airline said they expected fuel prices to rise 15 to 20 percent over the next three months to between $3.20 and $3.35 per gallon. American Airlines said they paid $2.80-$2.85 per gallon up almost 30 percent as well from $2.04 per gallon in Q4 2021.

Many experts in the industry are saying that they expect to see volatility in fuel and airfare prices for a while and even more so as the Russia-Ukraine war drags on.