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14 August, 2023

When will international airfares return to normal? Industry experts weigh in

It’s the question plaguing the travel industry since everyone stopped asking when can we actually travel again.

When will these damn international airfares going to return to normal?!?

In late May, it was reported that international airfares were 50 per cent higher than pre-pandemic levels and they have not dropped much since.

So we reached out to some industry experts and asked when could we expect to see international airfares return to pre-pandemic levels.

One of the experts, Graham ‘Skroo’ Turner, the CEO of Flight Centre, outlined that these high airfares are directly linked to capacity not fully recovering since the pandemic.

“We’re probably at 70-75 per cent of international capacity at the moment on pre COVID levels, [but] the natural growth in our market has tended to be about 4 per cent a year,” Skroo told Travel Weekly.

Flight Centre CEO Graham ‘Skroo’ Turner

“Through COVID – 2019 – that’s four years ago, so that’s probably another 15 or 20 per cent… for that extra capacity and extra demand.

Skroo continued, “We’re probably still under about 60-65-66 per cent of our natural capacity back. So we reckon by Christmas that we’ll be probably back to 85 per cent capacity. And probably sometime in 2024 – mid to late 2024 – providing the government stops restricting capacity, we should be pretty close to it in the second half of the calendar year.”

Another expert was Dean Long, the CEO of the Australian Federation of Travel Agents (AFTA) who said it’s still a bit unclear when we could see international airfares return to pre-pandemic levels.

“We don’t really have a crystal ball, but we are forecasting is it will get back to some pre pandemic levels, at the latest, at the end of next year,” Long said.

“We did see some encouraging figures at the end of March where they were starting to track down below the 2022 average airfares, but before, in 2019, it was less than $1,000 to get on a plane – around about $900 international average and we’re currently tracking anywhere between $1200-1300 on average.”

The high international airfares comes as the government’s transport minister, Catherine King, decided to block additional capacity from Qatar Airways.

The Federal Government sought out the opinion of Qantas as part of Qatar Airways’ application process for bilateral air rights, but Qantas opposed the bid saying it would cause Australian job losses, according to The Australian.

“We know we’re in a global competition for the allocation of aircraft because there are shortages,” Long said in reference to King’s decision.

“Why we’ve put a handbrake on our recovery both for the inbound industry and also for international travel by Australians is hugely disappointing.”

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Email the Travel Weekly team at traveldesk@travelweekly.com.au

afta australian federation of travel agents Catherine King Dean Long flight centre Graham 'Skroo' Turner