A Good Time to Buy

The Wall Street Journal is reporting a decline of 16 percent in airfares since 1995 making it a good time to snatch up cheap flights.

A round-trip ticket in 1995 would have cost a traveler $410.30, now it goes for about $337.97, and that includes nominal bag and reservation fees.

If you take those fees away, airline tickets are even lower compared to 1995, down 21 percent.

Darin Lee, who works for Compass Lexecon, a consulting firm, as an aviation economist said “there is no significant change in the secular, long-term cycle of prices – which is (why) they are going down.  If airlines had pricing power, they wouldn’t be rushing to buy more fuel-efficient plans and trying to eke out every little efficiency.”

Source: USA Today