Oh. My. God. What is up with airfares to Europe this summer? The last time I flew to Europe was almost 2 years ago, and I'm shocked at the high prices, especially considering the fact that domestic airfares are the same. We may be rethinking the family Eurotrip this summer, combine those airfares with an anemic dollar and you have one very expensive vacation. Sigh.

Why is it that I can fly from NY to SF or LA for $200 roundtrip but it's going to cost $1000 to go to Italy? It's not five times as far.....

Nina, I hear you. We are taking our family to UK this summer. Actually my DH's ticket is covered by work, but we still have to cough up 3 txts to London. Right now they are giving us quotes at $1300 per ticket!!! And that is a group rate b/c we are taking some students over! I can't stop complaining about it. I don't know if prices will come down or not. Maybe someone on this board will know a secret.

Welcome to my world.

We Canadians have got used to slavering over those incredible US prices, while we faced much higher ones, including on European and US-owned airlines operating in Canada.

E.G Ottawa - Vancouver = Ottawa - London. Yet I flew to Vancouver 2 weeks ago for about half the cost of a DISCOUNTED Air Canada flight to London.....

Hey, maybe if we all put our feet down and refuse to be raked over the coals the prices will come down?

It was just a thought...

See http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34586252

Remember gasoline for $1.29?

$200 for NYC-LA is an off-peak anomaly. And with taxes and fees, fares under $300 are very uncommon. Priced a peak season ticket lately? Priced a ticket from the heartland to the Caribbean lately?

For many transatlantic travelers - - for much of the year - - a ticket can be paid can easily be bought with a few days' wages (maybe even an afternoon's). It's not too hard to remember when it used to be weeks.

For th life of me, I can't imagine how any airline is staying in business, considering how little they charge.

Air travel is a phenomenal bargain.

Best wishes,

Rex

I agree with Rex about gas prices definitely having a huge impact on airfares. You are also traveling at the height of the season.

In 2002 we paid $636 per person for a May trip from Houston to Frankfurt. In 2005, we paid the same $636. This year, I just paid $796 also for May travel. While I'd like to have paid less, I didn't feel like I was being ripped off by the airlines.

Just like domestic fares, international prices are determined by competition as well as other factors. If you only have one carrier flying from Houston to London or Dallas to Frankfurt, fares will be higher.

And, the US $ is more valuable against the Euro this year than it was last year.

I am with Rex on this one.
Q: How do you make a small fortune in the airline business?
A: Start with a large fortune.
As oil prices rise expect flying to get more expensive.

As one who has never paid much more than $600 for a ticket to Europe (including in peak summer season) from Minneapolis, I too am in shock. I have been watching fares for a number of European cities this summer because we are travelling to Lithuania for our son's wedding. Our thought had been to snag a cheap ticket to London or Paris or some such and then take a cheap intra-European airline the rest of the way. Ticket prices this summer seem to be so skewed that currently a London ticket is as much as a ticket directly to Lithuania. This is unbelievable because in the past Lithuania was about double the price of a London flight. I can't imagine they are going to really stay this high....Or, at least I hope they aren't.

I am also having quite a dilemma since I typically wait until 4 to 6 weeks out to buy tickets, and I have always had success with this wait-until-the- end strategy. This typically works for me because we typicaly have some flexibility. In fact for this wedding, we are looking at tickets anywhere from 2 weeks to 2 days before the wedding, so it would seem to me that I'd be able to find something. But, so far, everything is very, very high.

Lets see in the summer 1977 it cost me $600 USD to fly from LAX to LGW. To equal that fare in todays inflation adjusted money would cost me $1950 USD. So we still have a ways to go before we reach parity.

Calculation was computed using this tool.
http://www.westegg.com/inflation/

I'm paying $A1900 ($US1425) for a return ticket to Frankfurt from Melbourne, Australia via Singapore.
In 1989, I paid $A2200. Even the flight time is now shorter at about 20 hours all up. Seems to me that the trends are in the right direction!

I remember when gasoline was 23 CENTS per gallon and airfares seemed high back then, too! (Yes, they had planes in those days.)

Given your shock, Nina, I'm kinda relieved that you <b>weren't</b> looking!!!

&gt;Why is it that I can fly from NY to SF or LA for $200 roundtrip but it's going to cost $1000 to go to Italy? It's not five times as far&lt;

Why is it that it will cost $300 to fly from Atlanta to Burlington, but $750 to Paris, which is more than 3x the distance?

Classic (but twisted) economics, my traveling friends.

Supply and demand. Then throw in conferred monopolies enjoyed by fewer and fewer airlinbes on certain routes. Plus taxes, landing fees that vary widely at various airports, wage rates, etc. Care to be specific? Here we go...

Why should it cost $400 round trip from Phoenix to London...and $1,700 round trip from Phoenix to Sydney? Or $600 between Phoenix and Tokyo? How much competition is there? Between Phoenix and London, there are literally dozens of choices, thousands of seats. BA, American, Continental, Delta, etc., etc. Between Phoenix and Sydney, there is United and Qantas. Tweedle dee and Tweedle dum. Take your pick. Either way, there is scant choice. And it's MUCH cheaper to fly from Phoenix to Tokyo -- about the same distance -- so the &quot;high cost of fuel&quot; argument begins to lose full credibility.

Bargain or not (try driving between Phoenix, London, or Sydney), the air traveler has little choice on certain routes at different times of the year. The traveler has no leverage with the airlines; their conferred (regulated) monopolies call the tune. What can you do about it? Stay home...or bite the bullet. Or is the bullet biting you?

Actually, the $200 fare from NYC is NOT an Anomoly, I've flown 3 times this year, NY to OAK in October (Napa for crush, THAT is high season) for $213 total, NY to San Diego next week for $237, and last month dh flew NY to OAK again for $215, all nonstop, all kind of last minute flights, all found on the first go around with JetBlue. We didn't have to scrounge for those fares.

I just wanted to clear that up, and if the fares to Europe don't get better we will postpone, it isn't a life or death trip, it's a vacation. We don't want to spend $10K for a vacation with kids heading to college in a few years.

I've flown to Italy 4 times and paid between $480-$600 total each time, always in May or June. Maybe I'm just cheap.

Rex,

No, I haven't priced a ticket from the heartland to the caribbean, I don't live there. I can fly to Puerto Rico or the Bahamas for $200 R/T though!

The number of Americans traveling to Europe decreased during the past four years (911, Iraq War concerns, boycotts, bird flu, etc.) and the airlines adapted accordingly. We are now in a period in which interest is increasing, but the airlines haven't yet responded with additional flights. Increased demand combined with reduced supply triggers higher prices.

Steph,

I found a decent fare for you, if you don't mind a stop, it's on Aerlingus, I was checking for June 21-28th, and you can go roundtrip for $702. You might want to look into it.

Nina, That was so nice of you! Thanks for looking! I will check it out. The problem for me though is we are bound to the university, since DH is taking students over. Blah. I could fly alone, but would rather not with a 4 year old and 2 year old. So I am probably trapped. However, maybe I should convince the university to look harder and save the kids some $$$ too.

I tend to disagree with others that txts are just going up with inflation, demand, oil prices.... etc. etc. My same ticket to UK last year was $850, so this is about a $500 increase. That is a lot in just one year.

I do agree that prices seem higher, but given the recent gas costs I don't think they are unreasonable. I avoid traveling to Europe in the summers for this reason, but I will say that I've been checking around for flights to Europe in November and they are fairly high as well.

By the way, I am from the heartland (St. Louis) and flights from St. Louis to almost anywhere in the Caribbean would cost me about as much as a ticket to Europe....I have yet to find a flight to the Carribean for under $700. We were considering that as an option for this fall but I would much rather go to Europe, especially at those flight costs.

Good luck!
Tracy