File: People go down from a plane at the international airport of Cape Town. AFP/Stephane de Sakutin
PARIS - Despite the recent fall in oil prices, high airfares may stay in place for some time to come, say airline industry professionals and experts.
The gradual return of demand for travel last year following the lifting of Covid-19-related travel restrictions, had already given the signal for higher fares.
But this year, just as the airlines are expecting to see passenger numbers almost back to pre-crisis levels, prices have really taken off.
In France in April, the average cost of an air ticket was 32.6 percent higher than four years earlier, according to the French Civil Aviation Authority.
That increase was as much as 51 percent for flights to the Asia-Pacific region.
In the United States, the air ticket price index published by the St Louis Federal Reserve showed an 11-percent increase in air ticket prices between April 2019 and April 2023.
This is despite the fact that oil prices have eased since peaking in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine in early 2022.
The International Air Transport Association (IATA) estimates that they will fall to an average of $98.5 a barrel this year, compared with $135.6 last year.
Representing between 25 percent and 30 percent of airline costs, fuel normally has a significant effect on ticket prices.
However "labour costs and other costs associated with the supply chain... seem to be higher or rising," Marie Owens Thomsen, IATA's chief economist said earlier this week in Istanbul.
"Airlines will have to find a way to cover those costs or they will start making losses again," at a time when they are barely back in the black and have to pay off the colossal debts incurred due to Covid-19, she added at the general meeting of her association, which brings together 300 airlines from around the world.