Why flights are fuller right now 🛫💺🤔

Scott's Cheap Flights

TOGETHER WITH   We’ve all been there. You’ve boarded the flight and found an empty seat next to you. Now you’re anxiously waiting for boarding to end and the door to close before anyone claims that seat. Well, we’ve got some bad news: the odds of that happening on flights in the next few months aren’t as good as they used to be. Flights are pretty full lately, and we don’t expect that to change any time soon. Here’s why your next few flights will probably be almost, if not completely, full—and what that means for deals.

Lagging demand meets lagging supply Passenger numbers are still down from 2019 levels, so you might expect that to translate to more open seats. But as airlines have realized that demand hasn’t quite come back in full force, they’ve adjusted their schedules accordingly. As of early September, passenger volume is down about 5% from 2019 levels, while the number of aircraft departures is down 14%. That means fewer planes are going out, but they are going out with more passengers.

Load factors and why they matter Airline load factors—the percentage of seats filled on each plane—are not just fully rebounded; since March of this year, they’ve exceeded 2019 levels. Today, the average plane flies with 85% of its seats filled. And on the most popular routes, it’s common for load factors to approach 100%. Domestic flights, as well as flights to Latin America, Mexico, Canada, and across the Atlantic have the highest load factors recently, while flights across the Pacific have an average load factor under 80%.

So how does all this affect prices? The primary determinant of how many cheap flights you see on a route is how much competition there is between airlines. This includes not just the number of airlines competing on a route, but also how frequent flights are. The fact that flight volume is still down near 15% compared to 2019 means there’s less competition between airlines putting downward pressure on fares. So while the bad news is that fewer flights means higher fares today, the good news is that there’s reason to expect flight volume will increase over the next 12-24 months. Take two quick examples. First, transpacific travel will improve as China and Japan reopen (Japan officially reopens October 11 for independent travel). Passenger volume between the US and China is currently down 98% compared to 2019; that demand will improve sharply once China reopens for tourism, and Chinese airlines will flood the market with transpacific flights as they did pre-pandemic, forcing other airlines across the board to slash fares throughout the region. Second, the pilot shortage that’s currently hobbling many airlines and forcing airlines to cut their flight schedules will (hopefully!) improve as airlines’ investments in flight schools and pay raises tempt more would-be pilots into the field. This time in 2023, we’re hopeful that we’ll see increased flight volume, which in turn will lead to lower load factors and lower fares. In the meantime, when deals pop up, we’ll let you know. For example, last week we found deals including: $227 nonstop roundtrip from Baltimore or Boston to Iceland $376 nonstop roundtrip from Anchorage to Honolulu For Elite members, $646 roundtrip nonstop from Fort Lauderdale to Berlin in premium economy