KILLEEN, TX — Whether you’re heading out to visit family for the holidays, or friends are coming to see you, airfare is rising.
So, if you’re looking to book a trip for the holidays, don’t expect to see COVID prices on plane tickets.
“The airlines are the ones that took the biggest hit,” Judy Graves, a travel agent for Take Me Away Travel said. “So they’re trying to catch up on their pricing.”
Experts say the industry lost half a trillion dollars during COVID, but the US Travel Association reported travel spending has been on the rise for the past three weeks.
“In economics, they’re going to charge the highest prices they could possibly get,” Robert Tennant, the interim department chair of economics at Texas A&M Central Texas said. “To come up with some level of profitability or minimize loss.”
“They can charge that to fill the plane because they know they’re going to fill the plane,” Tennant said about the increase in airfare. “What the most they can charge and you still go?”
That doesn’t mean more people are traveling to Central Texas though. In fact, several Central Texas hotels said they’re reservations are still low.
“People have started to think about traveling again, maybe not through the end of this year, but they have started to think about next year,” Graves said all of her clients canceled their 2020 trips.
She also stressed the importance of purchasing insurance before heading on your trip, just in case if anything were to come up and you would need a refund.