Welcome back to cheddar news everyone. We gotta talk
holiday travel. It's expected to ramp up in a
big way as thanksgiving approaches. And the christmas holiday
comes amid rising fuel prices which are currently at a
seven year high. And these higher costs starting to
impact airlines revenue could lead to higher ticket prices for
travelers as well. And all comes as airlines are
recovering from a tough year. That included staffing shortages
and widespread flight delays. Well, economists for the
travel app hopper, a deep, deep motorin is
here now to discuss a D Thank you so much
for coming on the show. How are these fuel
prices near multiyear highs impacting the holiday travel season?
Yeah. So like you mentioned, these fuel prices
are the highest we've seen in seven years. Um
They're currently about$2.20 for a gallon of kerosene jet
fuel. Um that is up 70% from just the
beginning of this year and that's leading to higher airfare
. It's almost equivalent to what we saw in 2019
. Pre pandemic at this time for the holiday season
. Um we're actually expecting it by Christmas that domestic
airfare will match 2019 levels at about$390 for a
domestic trip. So we're definitely seeing higher airfare prices
as a result of those higher fuel prices. How
can consumers take advantage of your app to try to
get the best prices when booking? Yeah, So
hopper is an app that tracks and monitors airfare prices
and we do all the work up front for you
and we'll just send you a notification when you have
the best deal available based on a huge amount of
historical data. Um So it's a really easy way
to track prices you just put in where you're going
and the dates you're planning to fly and we'll do
the rest pretty incredible. Um Well what have you
seen on your own platform as people do try to
get back out there both for domestic and international travel
. Yeah so we've seen an incredible amount of both
domestic and international demand primarily domestic demand. About 80%
of our bookings are for the domestic market. Um
so that's a little bit lower than pre pandemic times
. And that's primarily because most of the recovery that
we've seen in demand has been driven by that domestic
market. Um That being said you know we've seen
really high levels of demand. In fact for thanksgiving
we're expecting about 80 to 85% of depends on the
traffic at U. S. Airports. So I
would expect the crowds to really return this upcoming holiday
weekend. Mm Well what should travelers know as they
try to plan for the year ahead head as well
. Unfortunately it looks like fuel prices might stay elevated
at least through these winter months as covid cases a
do rise in europe. And as we could see
another resurgence here in the U. S. Amid
holiday travel. Yeah it's definitely a kind of a
changing and developing situation especially in Europe which is one
of the main international markets from the US the COVID
situation there has deteriorated a bit um which you know
could lead to deals on airfare if you're looking further
out in 2022 and not planning to travel this upcoming
holiday season to Europe. Um Overall we are expecting
fuel prices to remain relatively high going into next year
. Um And so really right now the deal is
for the holiday travel season have kind of passed.
So this is really a good time to start looking
at next year for travel deals. Especially early next
spring. Did any airlines in particular that are seeing
more generous pricing options for consumers? More reliable routes
than others? Yeah so especially um throughout this year
what we've really seen our leisure destinations trending the highest
among domestic travel interest. Um So we typically leisure
uh destinations are served by low cost carriers and budget
airlines. Um And so those airlines tend to have
some really good deals if you're kind of looking for
that. No frills low cost air fare. But
in general if you're headed to a leisure destination,
we've seen a lot of added capacity throughout this year
. So regardless of whether you're flying with a budget
carrier or a legacy airline you should see pretty good
deals. As long as you're looking a little further
past this holiday season, any specific airports where people
should definitely arrive in advance and what would you recommend
based on the demand that we're seeing. Yeah so
um for the busiest airports uh this upcoming holiday weekend
we're expecting Atlanta Dallas and L. A. X
. To B. B. Busiest. They're all
going to have over 100,000 departing passengers each day.
Uh I would expect Wednesday morning to be the busiest
day to depart. But what's really crazy is sunday
is probably gonna be even busier because you're gonna have
both domestic and international travelers all trying to return on
sunday. So we're expecting that to be the absolute
busiest day the day. Actually following thanksgiving is that
sunday? That's what we're expecting to be the busiest
day for travel. Okay And I see here that
hopper is offering something to holiday travelers called travel deal
Tuesday. What is this? Yeah so this is
a really good time to hop on some of those
deals for next year. Travel deal Tuesday is the
Tuesday after thanksgiving. It's when we tend to see
some of the best deals on airfare from carriers for
next year's flights. Um And so in addition to
that we also offer exclusive deals on the app so
you can fly to places like Hawaii Las Vegas Miami
some of those bucket list destinations. We even have
international destinations like paris and the Maldives Um and we
also offer exclusive deals. Some of these destinations are
$100 off round trip for next year so it's a
really good time to book that travel, we also
offer 30% off of our flexibility offerings so in case
you know you need some flexibility planning for next year
. That's also available. Okay, so it sounds
like the Tuesday after thanksgiving. Is your black friday
? Is that right? It's an amazing time to
get great deals on travel. Absolutely. Are there
any black friday, black friday or cyber monday deals
this year? From hopper? Yeah, so honestly
travel deal Tuesday is is the time to really book
those deals? So yeah, that's kind of our
version of it. What do you guys forecasting as
we do approach these winter months? I know people
are itching to get out especially in the cold but
there is a concern that covid cases will rise.
Do you think the travel will continue to increase in
? At what pace? Yeah, so we are
definitely still expecting travel to increase going into the holiday
season. Um So right now the T. S
. A. Throughput is about 80 to 85% of
pre pandemic levels were expecting closer to 90% as we
head into christmas. Now of course that is a
subject to the covid situation. But so far in
terms of both bookings and searches we've still seen really
strong demand for holiday travel for christmas and New Year's
. So at the moment it's looking like it's gonna
be a very strong holiday travel season. Alright,
christmas and New Year's. Will those be busier than
thanksgiving? Yes they will be. We're expecting about
2.3 million passengers for christmas on the busiest travel days
compared that to about 2.2 million for thanksgiving. It's
about 100,000 more across the U. S. So
we are expecting christmas to be a little bit busier
than thanksgiving this year. What about Spring break?
Is that something that families? Um and single people
are already trying to plan for when it comes to
booking? Yeah so we're definitely seeing an increase in
bookings for uh for next spring. Um That's usually
between sort of the end of february and the middle
of april. Um We're definitely seeing those bookings rise
. That also tends to just happen as we kind
of get past some of the best deals available for
the holidays travelers started looking a little further out.
So yeah, we're definitely seeing those bookings start to
crop up. Um Some of the earliest book destinations
include places like Orlando. Um So that's been really
popular as one of our most booked destinations for next
spring. So it could be families kind of planning
that early trip to Disney for next spring. All
right, so much info, so helpful for us
as we prepare for the holidays and beyond. Did
de more Duran. I hope I got that right
. I did thank you so much for coming on
the show, economist at hopper