pinniped

Late 1980's: MCI-MDW wasn't hard to get for $19 or $29 each way. I remember paying cash at the airport to fly Midway Airlines once.

Early 1990's: Bought my first TATL as an "open-ended" fare on DL. Outbound was on a fixed date, but the return could be on any date within one year with a 72-hour advance booking requirement. MCI-ATL-LGW-ATL-MCI was $775 R/T, outbound in September, inbound in June.

Same period, multiple Birmingham and London to/from U.S. roundtrips, I got better at booking these and booked some through a student travel agent. Got a couple for around 300 pounds R/T, which ended up being a decent fare as the pound had retreated from $2 to the $1.50-1.60 range.

Late 1990's: probably my heyday for dirt cheap airfares. Living in Chicago, so had plenty of competition and promotions to pick from. Many ORD-Europe R/T's over a five year period in the $400-500 R/T range. Even a couple sub-$400 on AA. Always off-peak of course - February and March being the optimal months to go. With occasional route bonuses and Plat status on AA, these trips would sometimes crank out 20k+ RDM's. Of course everything was upgradable with no copays.

Early 2000's: flew a bit less international but still picked up a lot of cheap domestic fares. West Coast for under $200 R/T, East Coast or Florida often for $59-69 each way. I was doing UA during that period ex-MCI, but Southwest was still the initiator of fare sales out of MCI. So I'd watch their sales and then watch to see if UA matched, which they often did.

BearX220

You have to reach back to pre-deregulation (pre-1978) to find the "much more expensive" inflation-adjusted fares the OP's dad was talking about. In the 1990s I figured $400 was about the target fair price for a transcon RT; today you can find scattered deals operating at weird hours in the $300s, but $500 or $550 is a more reasonable target. In the 1980s and early '90s there were plenty of $29 and $39 one-way fares up and down the northeast US thanks to New York Air, PeoplExpres, Air Florida, Presidential Airways, and the other destabilizing entrants. Today those same routes are flown by RJs or turboprops instead of mainline jets, reliability and service are worse, and the fare is liable to be $200 or $300, not $29 or $39.

International fares are more expensive today. I too flew PeoplExpress EWR-LGW a couple of times @ $298 RT, but also never paid more than $1,000 for a transatlantic ticket in economy on NW, TW, etc. $600-$800 was more like it. Today $1,000 is pretty much the floor price thanks to less competition, more fees, and higher taxes.

FAA1996

As mentioned beore, youd have to go way back to compare ticket rices to regulated area travle. been flying since i was a baby, but never really had any idea of trip costs until 1996. Thats when I first joined AAdvantage my dad, sister and I went to SE Asia, business class seats in CX where about $6,000 each we flew JFK-YVR-HKG-SIN-DPS-HKG-YVR-JFK, one of the segments was Garuda Indonesia. Jon our return, we were all Gold.
Can't compare nowadays, but I've gotten business class to Europe as low as $1,500 a year or two ago, I think ticket prices are very reasonable on american carriers nowadays.

3Cforme

Your reference to timing of deregulation is helpful.

Of course the cheap intra-California (PSA) and intra-Texas (Southwest) fares weren't subject to federal CAB regulation to prop them up. If one wants to look for 'market' prices in the U.S. pre-1978, that's where to look.

Sorry, but intercontinental aircraft don't run on butterfly farts. What was the average price of oil in the days of those TWA tickets, btw?

The U.S. has Open Skies agreements with a lot of countries but flight frequencies on numerous important routes are still regulated or slot-constrained.

Arsey00

I remember it was expensive pre-deregulation, but can't remember numbers as my folks were paying in those days. My first flights out of my own pocket were in the '90s, I think I paid about $2000 to go from LAX to NBO, and not much more than that for a 3-stop RTW with lots of overland segments on *A. An open jaw from LA into Shannon and out of Prague was about $800 off-peak then. Not too different from today's prices, really, but they did go down significantly in the oughties before going back up.

gobluetwo

I recall in the mid-90s tickets between ATL-DTW being in the $140-150 range. Also, about 12 years ago, tickets between ATL-ORD could be had for under $100 if you got lucky, and were still usually only around $130-150.

Back in '92, we also went to Seoul (ATL-LAX-GMP) over the summer. I recall that good prices for tickets around that time were around $600-700, with tickets usually more in the $800-1000 range.

GUWonder

For Americans flying within or from the US on the US majors, affordability of flying has dropped in the last 20 years and it has dropped substantially, in large part due to the government allowing big players to merge and even have government allowances to collude and even operate revenue-sharing joint ventures with various other big players on international long-haul routes.

jwright

And your data in support of this is what?

JohnnyColombia

My first flight that I paid for with my own £££s was London to Amsterdam about 20 years ago.

I flew the same route last week and not only did it cost the same but I am fairly certain that British Airways is still using the same crappy B734 that I went on the first time, perhaps even the same flight attendants too.

JackE

I was flying SFO to LAX for $19 on PSA in the 80s as well.

whlinder

Adjusted for inflation? No way.

AlreadyThere

Yes, I remember those fares, before USAir bought and dismantled PSA, as AA did with Air California. Also, $19 got you between EWR and DCA on People Express, before CO put an end to that.

During the 1970s regulated days, Icelandic Airlines remained out of IATA, and I paid $140 RT youth fare JFK-LUX (since Luxembourg didn't have an IATA-regulated airline, either). You could even get a $19 stopover night in REK with hotel, since Iceland was starting to promote itself as a destination.

Wait, did I just reveal how OLD I am??

pinniped

I think the experience has gotten a lot worse but I won't (yet) say that affordability has dropped "substantially." It's harder to quantify: I feel like my FFP benefits are diminishing, but it's hard to turn that into a precise equivalent as a fare increase.

Our last couple simple domestic trips have been in a similar price range as they've always been. MCI-PHX during prime Spring Break dates for $180 R/T, this coming Thanksgiving, MCI-PHL for Tues-Sun travel, 5 seats together, at $205 R/T. The ultralow fares people talk about ($29 each way or whatever) were *always* blacked out for "good" dates on these kinds of routes.

The main differences are in the experience:
- The "decent" fares are usually pushed to the first and last flights of the day.
- Lots of RJs where mainline used to exist.
- Most infrequent travelers will typically only have "easy" access to 1 free checked bag per flight, whereas everybody used to get two. Makes ski trips, golf trips, etc. a little more difficult.
- Airlines have simply gotten a lot better at predicting their supply and demand. Not only are the ultralow fares gone, but even your Tuesday morning flight is likely to be pretty full.
- Tighter controls on capacity mean there are simply fewer total seats targeted at leisure travelers. That causes people to plan farther ahead, leaving fewer options for a spontaneous getaway. I rarely if ever get a decent fare in the "netsaver" emails that airlines send. I hardly open them anymore.

Cloudship

There is a difference between the late 70's/early 80's, and the later 80's and 90's. With deregulation we saw a substantial drop in economy ticket prices. Bu I believe there was also a bit of an increase in first class fares as well to accompany that.

From my experience, in the 90's I would expect to pay about $150 for a flight from Boston to Orlando with flexibility, these days I expect about $200-$250. That is not a huge increase in the direct ticket cost, but there ARE big differences in other places - taxes, just getting to the airport and back, and the associated fees with travel. Also, I no longer expect a meal, I know I am going to be getting just my one seat with a full plane and not a decent chance of having an empty middle seat, I am going to have to make a connection (except for B6!) and fly small planes, and there is going to be a chance my luggage ends up in the hold instead of above me as bins fill up. And if there IS a delay in the flight, I know to expect that I may have up to a day or two delay before I can get back.

So, ticket prices are one thing. What that ticket buys is something different.

MADPhil

My first TATL was a student charter from LHR to Idlewild on BOAC in the summer of 1963, which in those days was the alternative to Icelandic out of Luxembourg for cheap travel. It cost GBP70 which has always seemed quite cheap and was a fraction of the regular regulated fare. Converting to USD in 1963 and correcting for the CPI the cost was about USD1,500 in today's money. Which is not much different from economy in summer these days. It did come with an open bar (the FAs gave up trying to deliver) and a free helicopter transfer to EWR for my onward flight on Mohawk.