Rising airfares are giving people spring break sticker shock

Elizabeth Smith was stunned after she saw how much a roundtrip ticket from Spokane, Washington, to Orlando, Florida, cost for this year’s spring break — just six years after her family’s first trip to Disney World.

“In 2016, the same seven of us went, and we paid $350 for airfare round-trip per person. Currently the same flights we were hoping to go on are over $1,000 per person,” Smith, an Idaho schoolteacher, told CNBC. “We were really shocked. Not in a million years would I think that I needed to have as much for airfare that I did for Disney.”

For months, the mother of three says she scoured the web for cheap flights – including Google Flights, Kayak, and Expedia.

“Everything said, ‘Don’t buy now. We expect better prices,’ including Google. And so I kept waiting,” she said.

But those prices never came down. 

“I have students that were gonna be flying to see their family for spring break, and they’ve told me that they can’t go, or they’re gonna have to drive because of these airline tickets,” Smith said. “The prices are just so high.”

Smith and her students aren’t the only ones experiencing sticker shock on travel rates. According to travel app Hopper, which analyzes historical airfare data, the average price of a domestic round-trip ticket has surged 26% over the last year to $290, while the average international ticket is $730 round-trip. Rising fuel costs, due to Russia’s war in Ukraine, are helping to drive the surge.

In Ohio, Miami University college freshman Anna Thompson started planning her spring break trip months ago. 

“I started looking at the West Coast. Really anywhere warm,” she said. “I started to look south as well – in areas like Florida and Louisiana.”

But her plans to relax with friends at the beach were canceled when she found out how much it would cost.

“The flight prices were a lot higher than I was expecting,” Thompson told CNBC. “I remember looking months prior when they were closer to $100 to $150. But upon looking again – they had skyrocketed upwards of $300, $400 for the same flights.”

Thompson said she ultimately used a travel app to find a cheap flight to Boston, where her brother lives.

Meanwhile, analysts say the Russian invasion of Ukraine and global oil concerns continue to push crude and jet fuel prices to their highest level in 13 years.

“Higher jet fuel prices that airlines are having to contend with is another reason that airfare is having to rise for travelers,” Damodaran said.