The uncertainty of the war creates golden opportunities: the cost of airline tickets for some intercontinental routes is falling sharply.
The Middle Eastern crisis, despite the ceasefire between the United States, Israel and Iran, continues to worry. Last Friday Airports Council International Europe sent an urgent letter to the EU Commission, warning that without a stable reopening of the energy flow within three weeks the “systemic deficiency”, with possible rationing and cuts to summer flights.
In the meantime, however, millions of travelers remain in suspenseuncertain whether this summer’s holidays will have to be cancelled, ticket prices are paradoxically collapsing on some exotic routes.
The paradox of falling prices
The mechanism is, after all, brutally simple. Demand slows, planes leave less full and the automatic algorithms that regulate prices react by lowering fareseven significantly.
Italians, caught between geopolitical uncertainty and the fear of last-minute cancellations, are choosing to wait or fall back on domestic destinations deemed safer. The result is that Intercontinental routes find themselves with empty seats to fill.
Photographing this dynamic is Assoutientswhich tracked airfares to select tourist spots in the Indian Ocean and Asia. The numbers that emerge are surprising: for one Milan-Maldives flight in the week from 9 to 16 August, the price collapsed from 1,470 to 1,056 eurosa saving of 28%.
From Rome to Cape Verde, on the same dates, the price drops from 1,104 to 849 eurosmarking a decline of 23%. Significant savings also on other routes: -18% for Rome and Milan towards Sharm el-Sheikh, and again -18% for Rome-Zanzibar and Milan-Seychelles.
Those who book now to leave between May and June can find even lower prices: the Seychelles can be reached with just 197 euros one way, the Maldives with 250. Hong Kong starts from 278 euros, Malaysia from 286Thailand by 290, Singapore by 300.
The paradox exists. Today, for many Italians, it can cost less to fly to Thailand or the Indian Ocean than to reach Sardinia.
The reasons for the falling prices
The paradox of this summer seems to be this: the further you fly, the proportionately more you save. The closer you stay, the more you risk paying. While exotic destinations surprisingly become accessible, “classic” holidays in the Mediterranean risk becoming more expensive.
The mechanism underlying this imbalance is technical; The jet fuel in fact represents approximately 45% of operating costs of the airlines, and the carriers are passing on the increases on the tickets of the routes where the demand is more rigid.
Greece, Spain and the Italian islands are destinations that tourists continue to want to reach at all costs, perceived as safe and close. In the absence of alternatives, companies know they can pass costs on to passengers without losing too many customers.
The opposite case occurs on large intercontinental routes, where the collapse in demand has taken away all bargaining power from the carriers. Gulf carriers, forced not to fly at a loss, have launched aggressive discounts on some routes.
This is the case of Emirates, Qatar Airways, Etihadcompanies that until yesterday could afford to increase the price now find themselves having to deal with hubs that have been halved, redesigned routes and planes that are too empty to be profitable.
A price that in some cases is lower than the flights booked during the last Easter holidays to travel from northern Italy to Sicily or Sardinia. Which says a lot about how much the economic geography of air tourism has changed in just a few weeks.
When (and if) it Strait of Hormuz returns to normal, it is likely that prices on long-haul routes will rebound upwards, while those on Mediterranean destinations may not fall at all.
