Despite the tourism revival, travelers flying between two Canadian destinations this summer are enjoying prices about 5% lower than before the pandemic, an analysis by travel app Hopper reveals. For Vancouver and Calgary, prices are even up to 25% lower than on the same date in 2019.
Posted at 4:36 p.m.
With the rise in the price of oil, the improvement may not last long, but for the moment the prices of plane tickets between Canadian destinations do not seem to want to take off.
For travel in the summer of 2022, round-trip flights to Toronto are the cheapest among the top 10 destinations in Canada. They sell for an average of $243, Hopper calculates, down 16% from 2019. At $286, tickets to Montreal are also down over the same period, but only 6%.
Domestically, average prices have mostly fallen (by 25% compared to 2019) for flights to Vancouver ($258) and Calgary ($252). On the other hand, they climbed for Ottawa ($330, +6%), Winnipeg ($320, +7%), Victoria ($374, +15%) and Kelowna ($324, +13%).
Many factors, including the number of routes and demand, can explain the variation in prices. After two summers when travel abroad was limited by health measures (screening, quarantine), many Canadians may well have decided to take their vacation elsewhere in the world this year.
For the moment, carriers do not seem to have adjusted their prices yet following the rise in the price of a barrel of oil caused by the war in Ukraine.
Americans pay more
The Canadian situation contrasts with that in the United States, where prices, driven by strong post-Omicron demand, climbed about 7% from 2019, to an average of US$330. Year-to-date ticket prices have risen by as much as 40% in the United States, Hopper estimated in a report produced earlier this week. According to Hopper, this price should climb another 10%, to US$360, by the end of May, and remain at this level in June.
As for international flights, with an average price of US$810, the average price of tickets is up 25% since the start of the year, still in the United States. These prices should also continue to climb by 15% until June.