The demand for air travel is high, but the airlines are receiving comparatively few new passenger jets – according to a study, this will keep ticket prices high. At the same time, airlines are making billions in profits.
Air travelers must continue to be prepared for high ticket prices in international air traffic. According to a recent study by the credit insurer Allianz Trade, the most important reason is the still scarce supply of newly completed aircraft.
Manufacturers are only slowly recovering from the slump in deliveries in 2020. According to Allianz Trade, the global pre-crisis level of around 1,600 new passenger jets will not be reached in the current year either.
Almost a fifth more for flights to the US
For the airlines, the strong increase in demand combined with falling kerosene prices means that they are likely to generate significant profits again. The airlines can sell the individual seat much more expensively than in 2019, which increases their margins.
According to Allianz Trade, flights between the USA and Europe have become 23 percent more expensive on average over the year. “After three years of heavy losses, the aviation industry could return to profitability in 2023 – that’s earlier than expected,” said Germany boss Milo Bogaerts. “However, the lack of capacity remains the bottleneck. That should slow down the airlines’ soaring for the time being. For consumers, this also means that flying is likely to remain expensive.”
Allianz Trade cites forecasts from the airline association IATA, which expects a surplus of 9.8 billion dollars for 2023. For comparison, before the pandemic, airlines had flown a profit of $26.4 billion in 2019 on better utilized aircraft.
passenger numbers just below pre-crisis level
According to an evaluation by the ADAC at the beginning of the year, flights are even 46 percent more expensive this year than last year. Compared to 2021, the flight prices of some airlines have even doubled. Travelers pay prices that are more than 40 percent higher than the 2022 level, especially for tickets from the airline Lufthansa and also the Swiss subsidiary Swiss.
According to IATA estimates, global traffic will grow to 4.35 billion passengers in the current year. That would be only four percent below the level of 2019. Whether the number is reached depends heavily on the human resources. Last year, the situation was sometimes chaotic, mainly due to the lack of staff at German airports.
In 2022, a fifth of the staff was missing on the ground compared to the pre-corona level. During the pandemic, many employees at airports and airlines made career changes, and there were also severance offers and layoffs. In the meantime, the staff at various German airports has been increased again. Representatives from airports and the travel industry are accordingly confident that there will be no similar flight chaos again this summer.