Low-cost airlines are increasing average prices for flights to and from Spain this summer, as revealed by Mabrian, a data appeal company.
The data is based on published prices between June 1 and September 15, 2024, and includes flights to Spain from its five major source markets and the five favourite countries of Spaniards, SchengenVisaInfo reports.
In general, flight prices from the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, France, and the Netherlands, Spain’s major source markets, increased by 26 per cent. Meanwhile, flight fares to Spaniard’s favourite countries such as Portugal, Italy, France, the UK, and Germany rose by 27 per cent.
Even though traditional airlines still have higher fares, the price increase is higher on low-cost airlines.
This represents a shift in the global trend detected between 2021 and 2023 when legacy carriers’ fares grew 40 per cent – while low-cost did a 6 per cent, incrementing air ticket prices.
According to the Director of Marketing and Communication at Mabrian, Carlos Cendra Cruz, the rise in average flight prices mirrors the growing running costs of airlines along with the rising demand to and from Spain for this summer.
There is still room for adjustment for these rates on these traditionally summer routes since we are dealing with dynamic prices that will vary over the coming weeks, responding to the behaviour of demand.
Low-Cost Carriers Represent 68.5% of Air Seats
Such an increase in flight tickets is expected to affect a lot of passengers, considering that low-cost carriers represent the majority of seats available to and from Spain.
Low-cost air capacity represents 68.5 per cent of the total, which is equivalent to 37.61 million seats, compared to the 17.33 million conventional airlines operate, and in addition, they grow faster.
As further revealed, the number of seats handled by low-cost carriers rose 11 per cent compared to 2023. On the other hand, conventional carriers saw a 4.1 per cent increase in air seats during the same period.
However, since 2019, low-cost and standard airlines saw 8.9 and 9.3 per cent growth in air seats, respectively.
Prices on Low-Cost Flights to & from UK Saw the Highest Increase
Mabrian data further shows that among five inbound markets, the UK saw the highest increase in flight prices compared to 2023. More specifically, flight prices to and from the UK increased by 31.3 per cent, with an average price of €210.
Germany and the Netherlands saw an increase of 5.1 and 7.3 per cent, with average prices of €187 and €176, respectively.
In this case, Italy and France were the only markets to experience a decrease of -5.4 and -6.8 per cent, with average prices of €105 and €124 respectively.
