In doing some basic research for a side project of mine (
https://quixical.com - Please do tell me what you think of it
), I started digging for information on the cost of a typical flight.
There are a load of different answers out there, but my favourite has been the following:
(a) Boeing 737-700 costs $3,958.00 per flight hour... A Boeing 747-8i or Airbus A380, cost around 30% less per flight hour, but fly longer haul routes.
(Source - https://t.co/nc28GqZ7f0?amp=1)
Which got me thinking... If the average airfare is priced at around $392 (source - https://t.co/J7INAdQEll?amp=1), and the average number of passengers per flight is around 39 flyers (source - https://t.co/VinVtyup3q?amp=1), then the airlines, based on a simple calculation, appear to make roughly $15,288 for each flight... After subtracting the cost of the flight itself ($2770 - $3958). Which looks like an 82 - 74% markup!
I'm not sure if that's entirely right. For a start, some articles suggest airlines make closer to $20 on the average ticket price, but I can't quite find a good source for that.
And now with Covid-19, where air traffic here in Europe is down by half, the airlines will surely be making less...
But I did wonder if the above reasoning makes sense, or if anyone has a better idea of how much airlines makes from customer fares...