Airfares! Through the roof.

IMO, set some fare alerts in Google flights and wait. Airlines are trying to figure out summer schedules.

No one can predict this. You will have to make your best guess and go with it. I think as the restrictions loosen up and summer comes, demand will continue to climb.

Honest advice, you waited too late. It’s the end of February and you’re looking for June. my experience has been you need to book about six months in advance for the best airfares and you may have waited until other people have started getting comfortable with travel and booked. There are less flights in there used to be and prices are going up.

You need to be very flexible. My suggestion would be to look using a flexible date options and be as flexible as you can be. You also want to look at any alternative airports near where you live. You may find much better options from JFK then EWR just because they’re a lot more flight options

I don’t think you’re too late at all. My last many trips i got low fares 2-3 mos out. Air France has been having good sale prices every month or two since last summer, keep your eyes out for another one. AF codeshares with Delta and KLM.

I've been looking at fares PHL to CDG for April. They were very good and are creeping up now. June of course will be higher, but I would keep checking. Think things are very much in flux right now.

Airfares are not cheap, now that Europe is opening up. Airlines have cut flights and therefore capacity has gone way down. Perhaps if you stopover somewhere, fares will be lower?

2020 - now are not normal times. It's just hard to predict anything.

I thought you were maybe just over reacting so I checked mid-June against what I paid for my March/April trip. Same airline same flights, almost exactly doubled in cost. Then drops to 50% more August 30 more or less then just 25% more by the end of September.

I would suggest you look at the May flights--end of the month. They're often less expensive than the first of June airfares.

Also check into going into different airports and out of different airports. Right now, we're seeing Dublin flights to be very reasonable. You might could spend a night there and go onto your final destination on RyanAir or some other budget airline. Sometimes that's a worthwhile approach. I don't know where you live, but would Dulles work to fly out of?

We're flying into LHR the end of May for about half what normal European airfares are. Our hometown airport's fares are substantially less than the usually cheap larger airport 100 miles north. They're even much cheaper than driving to ATL and flying on the same flights we're connecting to in ATL.

You've just got to figure out the angles that work best for you.

Now if we could just figure out where to stay in London--where room prices have gone completely out of sight (and our budget.)

We will be visiting France and Italy in July. I have particular flights that I want to book (a longer connecting time in Paris) so I went ahead and booked two weeks ago.
Summer time is very popular and can be pricey.
I agree with travelers that as Europe opens up, the demand will only become higher, as well as prices.
When you find what you like book it!
Happy travels!

Google flights has an interesting feature, you set a departure airport and it shows you fares to major European cities. They vary widely.

With fewer flights, fewer business travelers and higher jet fuel costs— it could well be the airfares of the past
are not going to return.

You are not too late- check everyday and use all the apps= Priceline, yak, Expedia- but beware. my flight was cheap, but I had to pay extra fro my seats, I kid you not. British air.

Airline tickets are in very high demand right now (have you tried to call an airline to speak with someone? then you've noticed...). Many airlines parked a LOT of their planes in the early days of the pandemic; some of those planes have been brought back online, some were retired or scrapped. There are far fewer flights now going than pre-COVID. Supply and demand. Low supply, an unprecedented surge in demand...you know how that goes.

That has been true for a while. Now there's this: The bad news from Ukraine and Russia will only make this worse. Petroleum prices worldwide are surely going to spike.

Remember: a large part of the cost of flying a jet around the world is the cost of filling it up with fuel. Jetfuel is not cheap (although relatively speaking, fuel prices have been moderate during much of the pandemic -- that's probably over). And price hikes in gas for your car (noticed any of those lately?) are usually quickly followed by significant price hikes for aviation fuels (yes, many airline have fuel prices locked in by contracts, but that doesn't completely remove the market forces at work). The airlines absolutely will pass along increased fuel costs to consumers.

If you are thinking about buying any airline tickets, I wouldn't wait too long -- I have a feeling prices will only go up in the coming weeks and months. Personally, I've got all my flights for the year already bought (actually, more than enough, I've got tickets for multiple trips including some that I expect to need to cancel).

Now I'm going to grab my wallet, and head out to fill the tank in my car before gas prices go up any more (my airplane, too!).

Always remember that flights within Europe are very cheap. So you might want to consider looking at other cities to fly into. London, Amsterdam and Frankfurt always seem to run a bit low and then you can always hop on a super cheap flight from there to CDG or do a day trip exploring then hop the train.

I was tracking Newark to CDG departing June 27 for several months. The price never budged off of $1,100 by more than a couple dollars. It's still there today. We decided to use miles.. We usually travel in September when rates ease, but I guess if you want to be there in the Summer, you are going to pay. French Bee flies Newark to ORY for around $700, but I know nothing about that airline!!!

Thank you all for your recommendations for booking our flights. With so much turmoil I did want to wait any longer. We booked flights from PHL (our hometown) to CDG via AerLingus with a brief stop in Dublin. All of the direct flights from EWR and/or PHL were much more expensive. So fingers crossed.