By Ryan Hooper for the Daily Mail
The cost of escaping Britain to sunnier climes in October has skyrocketed, with some flights to hotspots now hundreds of pounds more than pre-pandemic levels, according to a study.
Some one-way flights are now more than three times more expensive than in 2019, according to an analysis of the six busiest airports in England and the six most popular holiday destinations by the Which? consumer champion.
They found flights from BirminghamGatwick, Heathrow, Luton, Manchester and Stansted to Alicante, Antalya, DubaiDublin, Malaga and Tenerife were on average 42 percent more expensive than three years ago – from £150 to £212.
Their findings were based on data from industry company Skytra, which looked at the price of one-way flights between domestic and foreign airports booked with six months, three months and six weeks respectively before the start of the autumn break.
For example, the cost of a one-way flight from Gatwick to Dublin, booked six weeks before the biannual October period, rose by about 280 per cent – from £42 three years ago to £160 now.
A flight from Manchester to Dublin rose by more than 230 per cent, from £45 to £149. Skytra chief executive Elise Weber said rising fuel costs, pent-up demand for travel due to the pandemic and passenger caps at airports are all contributing to higher fares.
Guy Hobbs, editor of which? Travel, said: “Travellers have had a scorching time this year and our analysis shows they are paying for their problems. With fares so high, it is even more important that airports and airlines are held accountable for the unacceptable nuisance experienced by travelers. The government should give the Civil Aviation Authority more powers so that it can impose heavy fines on operators if they break the rules.’
The most expensive flight analyzed was from Heathrow to Dubai, booked six weeks before halftime and costing £847. The same flight in 2019 cost £603.
And a flight from Heathrow to Dublin, booked with six weeks left before the October break, cost £236 in September, compared to £84 at the same time three years ago. However, a small handful of trips have fallen in price.
This included the cost of a one-way flight from Luton to Dublin, booked with six weeks left for the six-month period – down from £27 before the pandemic to £17 this year.
A spokesman for Heathrow, the UK’s busiest airport, said: ‘Heathrow will not benefit from higher ticket prices for the next half.
“The unprecedented surge in passenger demand this summer, coupled with labor shortages in the travel sector in Europe and the US, has inevitably pushed prices up – before we factor in higher fuel costs and rising inflation.
“So the best we can do to ease that pressure on passengers is to fully resource teams across the industry, and support our airline partners and ground handlers working at Heathrow to do this as quickly as possible.”
Passengers at major airports, including Heathrow, Manchester and Gatwick, experienced significant disruption over the summer, with long queues at security and baggage collection, as well as last-minute cancellations.
Airlines have been forced to lay off thousands of workers in the gap between the end of the government’s furlough scheme and the end of Covid’s travel restrictions.
MPs were told this summer that companies were facing competition from labor markets and other industries to get staff back to airlines.