In the spirit of Ross Perot’s 1992 pasteboard charts (and his new site with U.S. economic charts). Here is a small preview of data that will be coming out soon as a new tool on FareCompare.com to help you better predict the best time to buy your airline tickets.
We have taken the top 50 cities by passenger traffic and pulled the cheapest airfare between all combinations of these cities on United and our software has priced these cheapest airfares for departing each week of the next year and averaged them.
It clearly shows (per the United press release) that the price spikes up on October 6th, but even worse (and not mentioned) — the cheapest airfares spike even higher for departures in the first two weeks of November and thereafter — Not so oddly enough corresponding to Southwest Airlines who is not taking bookings for departures after October 30th — yet.
I bet you can guess what will happen to the average price in early November when Southwest starts taking bookings … That is when you should start shopping for the Holidays — Wondering if the other legacy airlines are doing the same — take a look …
So on domestic flights it is best to buy no earlier than 4 months before traveling. What about international flights? When do they start to price competitively?
By the way, love your blog and website, alert system is the best.
Comment by Matt Wojo — June 23, 2008 @ 12:04 pm
There are exceptions to the 4-month domestic U.S. rule, but for the most part this is when airlines are actively managing prices — sales can extend past this window periodically so alerts are still important. I’ll be putting more info out on international soon as this is a bit more complicated.
Comment by Rick Seaney — June 23, 2008 @ 12:18 pm
Rick -
Great snapshot on the near future of airfares. Any possiblity of getting another snapshot once Southwest opens their schedule past Oct 30, 2008?
Also - I’m wondering if you have 2008 year to date data for the following:
1) average domestic economy airfare
2) average internatial economy & business class airfare
I’d like to compare the airlines second half projected fare increases with 1st have actuals.
Comment by Dave — June 23, 2008 @ 7:06 pm