After an expensive summer of travel, airfares under $300 are finally coming back. According to data from the travel booking app Hopper, the average plane ticket for a domestic flight this fall is $298. That's down from May, when average fares exceeded $400. Haylee Berg, Lead Economist at Hopper, joined Cheddar News' Opening Bell to tell travelers what they can expect as fall approaches.

Opening Bell

Air Travel Ticket Prices Finally Falling?

here to tell us more is Hayley Berg lead economist at hopper. So Haley, why are airfares coming down now? Not that I'm complaining, I'm happy about it, but why now? And how long can travelers expect this downward trend to continue? So part of the decline in airfares is seasonal. Typically at this time of year we're seeing fares come down from their midsummer peak because the fall end of august september october are less popular months for those big bucket list vacations. So major part of this drop is just seasonality, fewer p people traveling. So airlines making proactive adjustments in price. Part of it too is how much demand we saw in summer. Pent up demand surged in the spring and summer. We saw incredible volumes of bookings, travelers trying to get out there. So we're coming down from an extreme peak and even hire seasonal. We totally see and that's why this drop off is so significant from that. $410 peak in June now down to under $300 for fall trips. So you say it's because of demand. I know a lot of people travel for the holidays. Do we expect the prices to go back up as usual during the holidays or were these $300 fares continued throughout the holidays? We do expect fares are going to increase probably back to about $380 on average by November and December. But the next couple of months are the sweet spot for travel. We're expecting fares under about $320 in August September and starting to rise in October so for travelers who haven't booked anything, these are the best months to get a very low fare And some of the best fares that we'll see for the rest of the year. Good point there because those summer fairs were just too expensive for some people to travel. But do you think that those high ticket prices impacted the demand and willingness for people to still go or did they say oh well I'm going anyway or did they try to save some money and say I'll wait for now? We did not see these crazy high airfares slowdown demand in bookings for travel throughout the summer. It's pretty incredible airfares over fourth of july for example were 40% higher than they were in 2019 yet. That was one of the biggest weekends for travel in the summer season. So have not, not seeing the high airfares slowing down travelers, but we are expecting that some relief on those fares might get a few more travelers interested in booking something this fall? Well, if that didn't impact, it may be the Fed wheel because they increase interest rates again by three quarters of a percent. So how would that impact air travel fares? Plus people just wanted to travel, you know, the main thing the Fed is trying to impact here is that acceleration in inflation and inflation is impacting the airline industry and the travel industry in the same ways it's impacting us in our wallets at home expenses. Everything from the cost of serving snacks on a flight, to the actual operational expenses on the ground in the air are going to be impacted by it. Inflation also means families at home might have a smaller travel budget. So if we can slow down that inflation rate it's going to create some room for the airline industry to continue to flourish. We know that in a healthy economy we see competition. We see new entrance. All of that helps drive better airfares and better service for travelers. So hopefully we do see an improvement in inflation rates from the Fed action. I think in the end what we're hoping to see is a healthy economy where the aviation industry and also continue to flourish. Yeah, well we hopefully also we'll see an improvement in some of the chaos that we've been seeing over the summer. I mean we have delays, cancelations, lost luggage that happened to at least see when she left for her wedding all these issues. How much longer is this expected to last? We are seeing incredibly high delay cancelation rates. You know in June and July we were seeing over 25% of flights departing from the US delayed. There has been some fluctuation in those delays. We saw relief in mid july getting down to about you know just about 18% of flights delayed which is normal for this time of year. You've got weather, you have crowded airports during the summer but we are seeing those delay rates come back up, luckily this is not slowing down travelers either. Those high prices in these high delay rates aren't turning customers away. We're seeing that instead americans are adding protection, you know, in the hopper app one and five customers is including a flight disruption protection product when they book something that allows them to rebook for free on the next available flight if they're disrupted. So travelers are resilient this season. They're willing to pay higher prices. They're willing to maybe bear some disruption in their trips but also willing to pay a little bit more for those protections. Yeah, that protection is definitely important these days as we've seen that a lot of people needed. Alright. So overall, what else can we expect when it comes to travel in the coming months? Mhm. We can expect the next couple of months. We're going to see improvement in fares hopper, we're forecasting that airfares are going to come down in late august to about 2019 levels. So big relief on airfares in the next two months. But then prices will rise for the holiday season. Best way to ensure that you get a deal is going to be start monitoring prices. Now if you're planning to travel in september october even for the holidays. So that when those great deals are available if there are sales that might offer you a discount on a flight you're planning to take this year, you can take advantage of the low fares because they'll be low for the next couple of months. But we are expecting a busy, a very crowded airport and high airfares this holiday season. Alright, well, we thank you for all those tips and advice. Hayley Berg, lead economist at Hopper Time to book a trip.