We last traveled to Italy in October 2023 from Detroit, flying into Florence and out of Bologna. We booked on Delta for business class on the trip over and premium on the way back. The price was under $3,000 per ticket. I'm starting to price R/T tickets now for the same time frame, using the same seating and most pricing is over $5,000 per ticket. There doesn't seem to be much difference in price based on where we choose to fly to (BLQ, FLR or VCE). Is this just the way it is now? Thanks.
Posted by
Ontario, Canada
5796 posts
Yeah. Pretty much.
Posted by
Atlanta, GA, USA
864 posts
I expect you probably found a sale because that was a pretty low price even two years ago for Detroit to those destinations
And you might get lucky and find one again. But overall business class fares have gone up. The fact that you were flying out of a Delta hub makes it even harder. If I want a business class fare to Europe out of Atlanta, which is also a Delta hub, I generally have to go to New York and fly from there, which means I buy one ticket to New York and then buy a business class ticket from New York to Europe and back, etc. If you do that allow lots of extra time. Delta will check your luggage though if you ask them too, but you still want to allow a lot of extra time
Posted by
Westland, MI
819 posts
The number of flights between Detroit and some destinations has been reduced recently and that tends to keep the demand and prices high. Delta's monopoly on Detroit is the biggest factor.
I'm seeing wildly varying prices for multi-city trips based on the cities involved. While those prices have extreme variation they don't seem to fluctuate very much over time either. I did notice that Premium Select for Air France Detroit>Paris is often much cheaper than Delta - $1400 less!
Posted by
Schwerin
3440 posts
Think of Holy Year in 2025 with expected record tourist numbers. Flight capacities for Italy were moved from other Italian destinations to / from Rome.
See also this thread about general aviation market trends.
https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/transportation/growing-passenger-load-factors-change-strategy-for-flight-boking
Posted by
Edmonds, WA 🌨 ☂
12204 posts
Another factor is airplane production not keeping up with demand.
The airlines don't have the planes they expected, so capacity is less and older planes have higher operational costs.
Not a surprise airfares are headed up.
Posted by
Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, USA
15107 posts
Well, I"ve ben looking for months for flights from my non-hub/end of the line local airport to Edinburgh. I'm a Delta flyer and since last Fall prices have been around $3100-$3500 for Comfort + seats with Delta One running about $7,000. I love Delta One but just can't do that much.
I booked at $3100 and will see if they drop to ask for a credit but I'm not hopeful.
Posted by
San Francisco area
1923 posts
For the past year I’ve seen articles in the wall St Journal and snippets on CNBC of Delta’s CEO Ed Bastian. Usually around quarterly earnings. He’s indicated multiple times that people are paying up for premium experiences. It seems post Covid that travelers have decided to upgrade their travel and splurge on business class or premium economy. Higher demand and limited supply. Sigh. I hope the fares start to come down.
I’ve been monitoring RT from San Francisco to London. Most of the time they were in the 5K to high 5K range but recently dropped to 4.1K. So you can monitor fares and be quick to book when you see a fare that you are somewhat comfortable with. Having flexible dates can help as well. Delta has a flexible date search option for RT flights but not multi city.
Posted by
Vermont, USA
778 posts
I've been tracking prices for a number of Delta flights over the past few months. This is pretty anecdotal based on my searches only, but I have noticed that, while Economy Main fares seem slightly higher this year over the past couple of years, it seems as though Comfort+, Premium, and Business/First Class seats are much, much higher. A year or two ago, I could usually find Comfort+ seats for a couple hundred more than Economy; now it seems like they're as much as a thousand dollars more. Ouch, that's a lot for a tiny bit more leg room.
Maybe there's a higher demand now for those extra legroom seats, so the price is being driven up over the Economy seats? Dunno, but we're going to smoosh in the back of the plane for all of our foreseeable trips.
ETA: Ah, I was posting at the same time as Rocket. Seems like yes, those premium fares are in higher demand, thus the spike in prices.
Posted by
Edmonds, WA 🌨 ☂
12204 posts
Maybe airfares won't look so bad if one looks at inflation adjusted cost.
First trip Seattle to Florida paid $325 r/t coach. Inflation adjusted that is $1277 now.
Prem econ is now $732. "Coach" then would now be an airlines 'premium econ' today.
https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm
Over the longer time frame, air travel is cheaper now, than in the past.
My attempt to find a 'silver lining'.