Christmas is a time for family, friends and, for many Australians, travelling. But this year, holidaymakers may have to fork out a bit more for their festive season getaways, with both flight shortages and airline prices set to increase.
The Australian domestic aviation market is currently facing a capacity crisis, with a perfect storm of strong passenger demand, a shortage of pilots and a lack of available aircraft all playing a role. This has led to a number of flight cancellations and schedule changes in recent months, and the problem is only expected to worsen over the Christmas period.
Due to staff illness and pilot shortages, major airlines like Qantas and Virgin have also reduced the capacity levels on their planes.
As a result of the capacity issues, airlines are likely to increase fares in order to maximise revenue. So, if you’re planning on flying anywhere within Australia over the Christmas break, be prepared to pay a bit more than usual.
Graham Turner, chief executive of Flight Centre, has forecast that these issues will hit their peak over the Christmas period.
“There’ll be quite a bit of shortage around Christmas domestically but certainly internationally,” he told Sky News on last Thursday.
“If people haven’t booked their international flights by now, they’re going to have less flexibility, less choice and probably pay more.”
However, Mr Turner said that the situation should start returning to normal at the beginning of 2023, which is good news.
He said that after Christmas, which is obviously a peak season, the capacity will have come back quite a lot both domestically and internationally.
So, if you’re planning to travel over the Christmas holidays, whether it’s overseas or domestically, make sure you book your flights as soon as possible to avoid paying through the nose.
