Cheapflights data confirms great deals available compared to early 2008
March 6, 2009Up To 39% Fare Reductions on Certain Routes
London 5th March 2009: Cheapflights Ltd., the pioneer of and an international leader in independent online flight price search and comparison has reviewed fares promoted by its newsletter alert service in January and February 2008 and those a year on in 2009. Cheapflights www.cheapflights.co.uk has found that fares for popular destinations such as Hong Kong and Dubai have decreased up to 39% year on year (see appendix below for examples). Media reports also indicate that hotels in the USA and in the Mediterranean are heavily discounting room prices; in Greece to as low as £5 a night. It is evident therefore that destinations which rely heavily on tourism offer the best value for money by including reduced flight prices, bargain hotel deals and value added activities.
According to a recent published IATA report, the airline industry has been cutting route capacity and standing down aircraft in the face of the economic downturn and global aviation industry losses of US$8 Billion in 2008. IATA state "Global load factors have been falling sharply since September, as airlines have found demand falling away faster than they have been able to cut capacity," IATA added, "In January average load factors were 2.8% points below the level of the previous year." www.iata.co.uk
This has meant that although jet fuel prices have now dropped to around break-even point, for airlines, reducing capacity has been of no benefit due to a matching or larger drop in passenger numbers. British Airways has just reported a sharp fall in passenger traffic for February as the downturn and heavy snowfall forced a rise in cancellations. Total passenger numbers fell by 10.1 percent compared to February last year. Economy passenger numbers were down 5.5 percent, while premium was hardest hit, down 20 percent. In this situation, since airlines need to fill seats, prices tend to move in favour of the consumer. Airlines have accordingly been active over the past two months in promoting seat sales and are offering great value deals to consumers. As an example, currently** on Cheapflights’ Travel Deals Alert service, there are deals from Gatwick to several European cities including Munich, Nice, Vienna, Zurich and several others by Aer Lingus from just £20 return including taxes.
“The impact of the recession on flight and holiday prices in 2009 is already evident and means there are definitely lots of special deals and discounts on both flights and holidays that were NOT available last year. This year travel companies are offering significantly more competitive prices to various Pound stretching destinations and there are some fabulous bargains available for travellers,” says Francesca Ecsery, General Manager of Cheapflights.co.uk. “The availability of low-cost deals is affected by a number of factors but Cheapflights.co.uk has seen a significant rise in interest from potential advertisers over the last few months, which suggests the number of deals is not abating despite cuts in capacity by the travel industry.”
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** At time of release
Contact:
Cheapflights Ltd:
John Barrington-Carver; Corporate PR
Tel: +44 (0) 207 467 3535
Mobile +44 (0) 7831 655 630
e-mail: corporate-pr@cheapflights.com
