I am a regular long-haul leasure traveller now (apart from recent Covid disruptions) and generally fly from Brussels to Philippines twice a year VFF. One of my sons studies aeronautical engineering at the PATTS college in Manila, and I visit him regularly. I find at the moment that fares have almost doubled in the last months, and it is impossible to find a return fare BRU - MNL for anything under €1200, when last year there were occasional bargain offers (especially Turkish) in the circa €700 level

Oil prices have been drifting up, then the Russian invasion of Ukraine has badly impacted the World's oil supplies. Does this really account for such a large percentage increase in the average ticket price? I am sure that at current price levels, many potential customers are being driven away from booking, which begins to create a vicious circle that makes the problem all more difficult. I would have thought that if Russia can't sell energy to Europe like before, it would find alternative markets, while Europe sourced its imports elsewhere than Russia - in this case, a bit of "all change", then back to normal supply:demand dynamics.

I have no insight into how an airline determines fare levels that is a bit of a balance between covering changing costs, and stimulating demand. Getting that wrong in either direction will obviously impact profits. Are these fare increases over-pessimistic in the longer term, if my assertion that the energy market is temporarily perturbed but will once again find an equilibrium? It's not like the total output of oil/gas has decreased much!!

In the end, I will have to bite the bullet, and book in any case.


One a separate topic, I wonder if the growth of LCCs actually allows me to construct an all-LCC flight, probably with multiple changes, that would not take 5 days in each direction, and would still be "cheap". My own first attempts were not successful. Example, I found Wizz fares from Europe to AUH/Abu Dhabi to be very expensive, around €900 return

To put it very simply:

Ticket prices are calculated by supply and demand. The prices are based on what the market will pay for the product, while the costs determine if the airline will make a profit.

If the costs are too high to make a profit on a route, then in the long term, the airline will switch the aircraft to a route that will be profitable.

There is no “magic formula” for ticket pricing with respect to costs…the airline simply wants to maximize revenue per plane flight. If they price too high, they have lots of empty seats, if they price too low, the plane sells out quickly and they don’t make as much revenue per flight.

The airlines have “fare buckets” in order to control the pricing on each flight. There are multiple fare buckets with different pricing and conditions in each cabin. This allows for dynamic pricing where they can change fares daily for different ticket conditions to try to find the maximum revenue per flight. I think AA was the “innovator” in this respect, but someone may correct me.

Supply, demand and costs. Not only the cost of fuel is up dramatically but inflation and labor costs have risen dramatically, too. Airlines, as well they should as profit making ventures for their shareholders, will do all they can to get the highest price someone is willing to pay for each seat. As long as people are paying the prices, they have no reason to lower fares to likely unprofitable levels. Hotels, rental cars, restaurants are up dramatically, too, but people don't seem to complain about lower profile targets.

With respect to LCCs:

LCC is short for Low COST Carrier, meaning they have tried to keep their COSTs down so they can make (some) (more) profit on marginal routes where customers might be more price sensitive.

Low cost does not necessarily mean Low Price. They generally use the same type of dynamic pricing in fare buckets as the legacies. A few very low cost seats in a bucket are sold as a loss leader for advertising purposes, but most of the seats are sold for much more.

LCCs have the same objective as their Legacy counterparts…to maximize revenue (and profit) from each flight.

From someone who used to do this for a living: the cost is whatever I want it to be, subject to head office OK. I know what my demand peaks are and will charge accordingly. I also know my forward booking load factor 90 days out. Some days I never touched the fares, other days I changed almost everything.

sassiciai wrote:

In the end, I will have to bite the bullet, and book in any case.

Without trying to be snarky, you kind of just answered your own question. You bought the ticket anyway. Any for-profit business will want to charge the highest that customers are willing to pay.

If I remember correctly, and I am going back to my University/College days too, the USD is the pricing currency used by the clearing house. So, if the pound drops, there will be a corresponding rise in airfare. Conversely, the ticket price will fall if the pound rises against the USD. In theory, that's one other factor to consider in pricing.

ScorpioMC3 wrote:

sassiciai wrote:

In the end, I will have to bite the bullet, and book in any case.

Well, I have a family compulsion to make the trip. I argue that I am in a minority of people who "want" to make the journey, but will be put off by a high fare! I suspect that VFF is less than 50% of non-business traffic, and high fares will kill off that 50%

Look up consumer surplus and producer surplus. You bought the ticket, so the price paid gave you some consumer surplus as presumably some higher price would have foregoing the ticket. The difference between the fare and the highest price before you said “no folks I’m not doing VFF, too expensive”.

I can't be the only person seeing this thread and thinking even €1200 round trip for 21,000 km of flight is still ridiculously cheap.

We also don't know the dates of the trip- high season, maybe? If so then the cheap fare buckets are blocked from sale.

sassiciai wrote:

I am a regular long-haul leasure traveller now (apart from recent Covid disruptions) and generally fly from Brussels to Philippines twice a year VFF. One of my sons studies aeronautical engineering at the PATTS college in Manila, and I visit him regularly. I find at the moment that fares have almost doubled in the last months, and it is impossible to find a return fare BRU - MNL for anything under €1200, when last year there were occasional bargain offers (especially Turkish) in the circa €700 level

Out on Saturday 12 November from Brussels to Manila, return Saturday 19 November, Turkish changing in Istanbul each way comes to 930 euros, well under the mentioned 1200 euros

If you're prepared to travel mid week to/from Amsterdam, you can fly with Turkish for 830 euros return instead

If you're prepared to fly midweek from Paris in October, flying with Saudia and changing each way in Riyadh instead of Istanbul, you can have a Brussels-Manila round trip for 575 euros

Using LCCs to travel between Belgium and the Philippines is likely to be difficult, high risk and complex. EU law around compensation for delays won't apply, the baggage fees will make things difficult, you may need a transit visa somewhere on the way, and you need to factor in some lengthy layovers to cover the risk of a flight delay somewhere. Stick with a single ticket itinerary (ie just 1 airline responsible for the entire itinerary), allowing for codeshares, with max 1 aircraft change in each direction

Google Flights can be very effective at hunting out bargains - they're harder to find with people wanting to fly post-Covid, Russian airspace being closed, and high oil prices.... but the bargains still exist

Also make sure youre spoofing your location with a VPN to buy tickets from a cheaper country, and use incognito mode on your browser so the website algorithm doesnt detect you looking up the same flight over and over and present you higher prices since youre obviously looking to buy, otherwise you wouldnt be looking at fares multiple times