I'm concerned that tickets will go alot higher because of fuel surcharges, but hopeful prices may go down after the end of March because of the new Open Skies policy. My daughter receives her passport next week. Should I go ahead and get our tickets then, or wait awhile?
Posted by
Nottingham, UK
658 posts
I can’t predict the future, if I could I’d win the national lottery every week.
What I can do is tell you what a UK airlines pricing policy is, in a general way. Christmas is our busiest time of the year. My airline never discount fares over Christmas - we do the opposite. We were one of the big winners with ‘open-sky’ but as yet we are not planning to extend our routes to the US, we are finding more lucrative markets in currency zones that are a little more stable. All of this means that, taking fuel surcharges and a falling USD into account, our pricing department has no plans on the table to discount US routes. But that could all change in a flash. Nobody saw 9/11 coming and that changed airline pricing policy overnight. All I can say is that at the moment we have no plans to discount. I'm sorry to be so blunt and my comments about 9/11 are not meant to trivialise that tragedy.
Posted by
Seattle, WA
1317 posts
I think the best thing anyone can do when shopping for tickets is to start early and as soon as you find a fare that is reasonable (compared to average ticket prices, not necessarily what you would find reasonable), snatch it up.
I think the Open Skies policy is not going to have much of an immediate impact. The airlines that have started new routes have already had their sales (i.e., Northwest's direct to London flight introductory rate was $700 for June) and there aren't enough new routes starting yet to really create a lot of pricing competition.
The general trend is for everything to go up (except maybe the US dollar...). Since you are not traveling during the off-season, if you find a fare you like next week, I'd buy it.