Airlines Reporting Corporation (ARC) in partnership with Expedia Inc., today released a comprehensive study of worldwide air travel trends: New Heights for Air Travel: Understanding the Realities of Dropping Ticket Prices and Surging Capacity. Expedia and ARC together conducted an original analysis of hundreds of millions of airline tickets to spot trends that can be used to book air travel with intelligence in 2017.
ARC contributed detailed insight and ticket information to the study garnered from its data repository housing almost 12.5 billion passenger flights. Some of the revelations this fourth study from ARC and Expedia included:
- Economy class average ticket prices are generally falling worldwide to their lowest point since 2013.
- Travel between these regions saw the biggest price drop: South America to Southeast Asia, South America to Southern Europe and China to Southern Europe.
- Out of 500 of the top destination airports, Jose Marti International Airport in Havana, Cuba, represents the greatest percentage change (up 53 percent) in arriving travellers on commercial flights from 2015 to 2016.
- Weekends are when the least expensive tickets are booked, while Fridays are when the most expensive tickets are purchased. For travel with origins and destinations within the United States, Sunday is when the lowest ticket prices are booked; an average of 11 percent lower compared to Friday.
- Purchasing air tickets in the U.S. at least 21 days in advance can potentially save about 34 percent to Europe and 17 percent domestically.
The complete ARC-Expedia study is available free here.
Chuck Thackston, ARC’s managing director of enterprise information, commented: “Overall ticket prices continue their multi-year decline and we see nothing in the near-term data to suggest a change in this trend, especially with the increase in airline seat capacity. As a company that has visibility into what travelers are actually buying, and the ability to apply sophisticated algorithms to make that information valuable and useful, ARC is delighted once again to partner with Expedia for this study. And what all the data show is no matter how you look at it, it’s a great time to fly.”
“For today’s traveler, this confluence of circumstances – more planes, lower prices, more destinations – is exceptional,” said Greg Schulze, senior vice president, Expedia commercial strategy and services. “It means that the barriers to booking a dream trip are lowered. It also means that everyday travel – flights to see the family, work trips – are likely to be easier to book at a lower price. Expedia and ARC enjoy access to a wealth of data. Together, we are showing travelers that the travel possibilities for 2017 are almost limitless.”
