Will the airfares come down further or is this about how low they will stay for the summer months. We need a halfway decent fare to Rome in June but they only seemed to have dropped by a few dollars. We will be flying from the east coast.

June is a pretty expensive month to travel. If you see a fare you can live with, I'd grab it. I am also from the east coast(NY) so I can usually get direct flights at a reasonable cost. This year has been tough though. I booked my flight to London in February(going in May).

I am not expecting big decreases. You might see a sale, but... a lot depends on your flexiblity (Are you willing to change dates, make multiple connections etc?)

There's just less capacity which is allowing the airlines to charge airfares that are closer to cost or "profit" even (That's a novel concept for most airlines|

However, my application to Hogwarts was denied so my crystal ball reading skills are far from perfect!

I have an awful feeling that they aren't going to come down this year. Demand is up significantly (darn that falling Euro) and the airlines are now benefiting from the large cuts they have made to capacity over the last few years. It is simple supply and demand at work.

Supply (more seats) is not going to increase in the short term so unless something alters the demand curve - and we all know what that could be - the airlines are going to win this year.

The industry's loss forecast was recently cut in half from about $5.8 billion to $2.9 billion. A large portion of that almost $3 billion is what we are going to have to shell out to get over to Europe this year.

You might indicate what you think is a half way decent price. That would help to advise you.

Have you searched www.kayak.com ?

Thin

I realize prices are a difficult thing to predict and believe that the airlines will win out this year. My dates are not flexible as we are attending a wedding in Tuscany so we must travel in high season. A decent airfare would be around 1100 dollars from east coast to Rome.

Have you considered flying into a nearby airport/country and taking a train or regional airline? May be a hassle but save you $. A friend of mine did east coast --> Frankfurt, then picked up a low budget carrier from Frankfurt to Florence.

Tickets are higher this year. I just got back from London (biz) and paid $1400 for a RT from Indianapolis via Boston. Amsterdam last November, from Indy via Atlanta was $760.

I'm finding very reasonable Fall fares to Frankfurt from IAH on American but Summer fares are always high because of the demand. I'd try looking at fares into other major airports as suggested above and then using a budget carrier into Italy.

Just for grins, I plugged in a couple of arbitrary dates (6/8-6/16) into Expedia.com and found a $941 fare from JFK to Rome on Aer Lingus. There were also a couple of Alitalia NS flights for $1175.

For the same dates, Expeida came back with several $1100 fares, both NS and connections, from Philadelphia to Rome on US Airways.

Keep looking, I think you can find what you're looking for.

Well, what's the definition of the expected fare?

I think that we have gotten spoiled by some of the amazingly cheap deals over the past few years and now....it's back to a reality.

Call AerLingus. We are paying $820 round trip Boston to Paris in June. The price was lower by calling.

We finally caved in and two days ago purchased our tickets to London for August at $932 per ticket. We live near DC, but we seem to do better by driving to NY and flying out of JFK (there are 4 of us). It's only a 4-hour drive and we get to see family who live near the airport. Last year we flew to Zurich out of JFK and saved about $600, after gas and tolls (parking would have been the same if we had left from Dulles, Reagan National or BWI). I've been watching the fares for months, and they've been holding at $932 on Delta. Because there are four of us (maybe a total of 6, but the other 2 will fly out of the DC-area), we wanted to make sure that we could get 4 tickets together on flights going to and coming from London. My husband has told me not to look anymore, since there's nothing we can do if the fares go down. But at least we now have our tickets and are set to go. We even have all our hotels booked.

Try Icelandair - if there are cities you can depart from and arrive in that suit you. Try flexible days for a good rate.

itasoftware.com

use the month-long view

Ask yourself THIS question:

WHY would airfares come down?

what are your dates cornelius?

have you tried iberia.com. I just booked a flight from washington, dc to rome for $600.00 round trip, now granted it was May 26th returning June 23rd, but I was looking for a friend and found the same fare for June 7th or June 9th..take a look, you might find a great fare.

Thanks all...will keep trying

In all fairness, I forgot to mention that there is a cheaper fare to London from JFK on the dates that we are going. Kuwaiti Airlines has a $794 fare, but we always prefer to fly on an American or European carrier.