News Forum - Airline industry blames rising costs for expensive airfares, is this true?

[Thaiger]

Expensive airfares look set to stay for the foreseeable future according to the airline industry. The industry is trotting out the usual excuses that the recent spike in expensive ticket prices is attributed to a rise in operational costs, including surging fuel prices and other factors. Nok Air CEO, Wutthiphum Jurangkool, cited a surge in …

The story Airline industry blames rising costs for expensive airfares, is this true? as seen on Thaiger News.

Read the full story

[ExpatPattaya]

Humans are supposed to evolve.  The industrial age is over 100 years old now and we still rely on fossil fuels, which are inefficient, costly to mine and refine, costly to transport, etc....

I thought with the advent of Online video, face times, Skype and such that humans would fly and drive much less as they can see their families anytime on their mobile, or TV and have a conversation....Business travel should be ZERO by now,  All companies can negotiate in person, albeit online, so why would businessmen and women need to travel 1000's of miles to discuss business???

Yes holiday travel will always be necessary, and yes, inflation is real.  Believe we are having the worst inflation since 1979-1980...so prices of everything are higher for now.  Wealthy will always have money to travel....yet they can hire private jets and such.  

The only answer is to evolve, find more efficient and cheaper ways to fuel transport....still a few decades away am afraid as Oil companies still make more profit than almost any other commodity/business on earth

[Marc26]

26 minutes ago, ExpatPattaya said:

Humans are supposed to evolve.  The industrial age is over 100 years old now and we still rely on fossil fuels, which are inefficient, costly to mine and refine, costly to transport, etc....

I thought with the advent of Online video, face times, Skype and such that humans would fly and drive much less as they can see their families anytime on their mobile, or TV and have a conversation....Business travel should be ZERO by now,  All companies can negotiate in person, albeit online, so why would businessmen and women need to travel 1000's of miles to discuss business???

Yes holiday travel will always be necessary, and yes, inflation is real.  Believe we are having the worst inflation since 1979-1980...so prices of everything are higher for now.  Wealthy will always have money to travel....yet they can hire private jets and such.  

The only answer is to evolve, find more efficient and cheaper ways to fuel transport....still a few decades away am afraid as Oil companies still make more profit than almost any other commodity/business on earth

You can't build trusting business relationships over Zoom

You can't build an actual friendship over Zoom

 

And building actual relationships, getting to actually know people you want business from then builds trust 

 

That stuff matters, it's human nature

 

Most businesses have a lot of competition and many times, there isn't much difference in the product

 

So people want to do business with people they like 

 

I certainly think Zoom cab add to all that and cut down on business travel a bit

 

But people want real life connections 

It matters 

[Skip]

The previous two posters have outlined the far reaching extremes of the need for travel... my guess is that it lies somewhere in the middle... as to the article... cost of doing business should absolutely be controlled... but government intervention  should be the last resort... the marketplace indicates supply and demand and too much of either results in the price for goods and/or services either rising or falling.  Businesses that gouge get away with it because the consumers allow them to by continuing to utilize their services... stop consuming and see how fast prices change... the covid experiment proved that.

[TWS60]

52 minutes ago, ExpatPattaya said:

Humans are supposed to evolve.  The industrial age is over 100 years old now and we still rely on fossil fuels, which are inefficient, costly to mine and refine, costly to transport, etc....

I thought with the advent of Online video, face times, Skype and such that humans would fly and drive much less as they can see their families anytime on their mobile, or TV and have a conversation....Business travel should be ZERO by now,  All companies can negotiate in person, albeit online, so why would businessmen and women need to travel 1000's of miles to discuss business???

Yes holiday travel will always be necessary, and yes, inflation is real.  Believe we are having the worst inflation since 1979-1980...so prices of everything are higher for now.  Wealthy will always have money to travel....yet they can hire private jets and such.  

The only answer is to evolve, find more efficient and cheaper ways to fuel transport....still a few decades away am afraid as Oil companies still make more profit than almost any other commodity/business on earth

The step forward with Fusion last year was/is intriguing.   I think the next 2 generations will see that come to fruition.   Not a UFO nerd or a conspiracy-minded person however I have a niggling feeling there will be a link between advanced power sources and the more recent batches of UFO/UAPs gadgets reportedly flicking about in designated military training and exercise boxes off the East and West coasts of Murica.  

[Grumpish]

There are two possible constraints on airfares - one is the usual commercial restraints of supply, demand, competition, plus the cost of providing the service. The other is that airlines should not be setting predatory prices  - prices that are below cost and aimed at shutting down the competition. What we are seeing now is that even though capacity is still well below pre-covid levels, demand is not outstripping supply. And the bottom line for any airline has always been as many bums on seats for as much money as they can get - they are commercial businesses, not a public service.

[Saunk]

9 hours ago, Marc26 said:

You can't build trusting business relationships over Zoom

You can't build an actual friendship over Zoom

And building actual relationships, getting to actually know people you want business from then builds trust 

That stuff matters, it's human nature

Most businesses have a lot of competition and many times, there isn't much difference in the product

So people want to do business with people they like 

I certainly think Zoom cab add to all that and cut down on business travel a bit

But people want real life connections 

It matters 

Indeed, not everyone wants to live online lives which isn't the same as in-person human interactions.  The statistics on mental illness and depression in those addicted to social media seems to support this. 
I don't think "evolving" means living like robots.  To each their own.

[Saunk]

4 hours ago, Grumpish said:

There are two possible constraints on airfares - one is the usual commercial restraints of supply, demand, competition, plus the cost of providing the service. The other is that airlines should not be setting predatory prices  - prices that are below cost and aimed at shutting down the competition. What we are seeing now is that even though capacity is still well below pre-covid levels, demand is not outstripping supply. And the bottom line for any airline has always been as many bums on seats for as much money as they can get - they are commercial businesses, not a public service.

We're also headed towards a global recession which will decrease travel demand and I would expect airlines will eventually cut back on the amount of flights on offer.  In the US, with our horrible and outdated airport infrastructure, airlines are already cutting back on routes before the summer travel season starts.  I think demand for travel will cater by this summer's end and for who knows how long.

[Manu]

23 hours ago, ExpatPattaya said:

Humans are supposed to evolve.  The industrial age is over 100 years old now and we still rely on fossil fuels, which are inefficient, costly to mine and refine, costly to transport, etc....

...but nevertheless brings tons of money to a few's pockets. That's why. Nothing evolves unless it is to be replaced by something that brings more money.

[Manu]

14 hours ago, Saunk said:

Indeed, not everyone wants to live online lives which isn't the same as in-person human interactions.  The statistics on mental illness and depression in those addicted to social media seems to support this. 
I don't think "evolving" means living like robots.  To each their own.

And the lockdowns showed us exactly that: humans are meant to interact with each other in reality or they go mad. And when one understands how the so called social media shape people's minds and the methods they use to get people addicted, then one can see the damages it does now and how it will just get worse in the long term. The thing is, social media are big businesses making tons of money. Again, it is down to money how the world, people evolve, regardless in which way, bad or good.

[Marc26]

1 hour ago, Manu said:

And the lockdowns showed us exactly that: humans are meant to interact with each other in reality or they go mad. And when one understands how the so called social media shape people's minds and the methods they use to get people addicted, then one can see the damages it does now and how it will just get worse in the long term. The thing is, social media are big businesses making tons of money. Again, it is down to money how the world, people evolve, regardless in which way, bad or good.

 But in the same breath social media and technology allowed us to keep some semblance of our relationships relatively normal 

 

I was without family(wife and my immediate family) for 16 months 

 

But my relationships with them didn't feel strained because of those modern technologies 

 

I was also lucky to live somewhere where I was still able to socialize with local friends after the 1st few initial months 

[Pinetree]

To add to the comments above, I can give an example from my own ex airline employers.  They took the opportunity during covid to return/scrap some aging B744Fs and replaced them with fewer  B747 800s , they also returned all the B777- 200s and older Airbus A320s. The new fleet will also be augmented by the new B777X when it is released to service.  All this new kit has to be paid for over time and that has added to the ticket prices. I suspect that in a few of the more financially robust airlines, a similar set of decisions has been made. 

[Manu]

2 hours ago, Marc26 said:

 But in the same breath social media and technology allowed us to keep some semblance of our relationships relatively normal 

I was without family(wife and my immediate family) for 16 months 

But my relationships with them didn't feel strained because of those modern technologies 

I was also lucky to live somewhere where I was still able to socialize with local friends after the 1st few initial months 

...while at the same time, it created for many others around the globe addictions followed by depressions and mental issues, even suicides, which is what social media creates in general, most especially amongst teenagers and young adults, and it can only get worse.

All new inventions / evolutions are meant to be good for humanity at first, this is just that when those can also be used to bring tons of money then they turn eventually to be primarily used for that purpose while at the same time (for some) the original good remains. The question is: is the little good left worth all the bad already there and the worse to come?

[Ivo_Shandor]

 

On 4/11/2023 at 10:41 AM, Thaiger said:

expensive ticket prices is attributed to a rise in operational costs, including surging fuel prices and other factors

Quite the opposite, according to the IATA Jet Fuel Monitor:

https://www.iata.org/en/publications/economics/fuel-monitor/

Prices are largely lower now than 1 year ago.

Airlines want to recover the lost profits due to the pandemic.

Simple.