Travel The budget airlines are now expensive

What were those days when you could fly around Europe for nine euros! With a bad climate conscience, of course, and only with hand luggage, but still with some anticipation That's not so long ago.

That was in the years before the corona pandemic and even more often before 2011, when there was no air traffic tax in Germany But those times may be over for now.

Prices rose sharply last year, especially during the holiday months, when it felt like all Germans wanted to catch up on the flight to the Mediterranean that the pandemic had denied them And when, at the same time, the airlines failed to offer a sufficient number of flights.

No improvement seems to be in sight for 2023 "Flight prices will remain high, no reductions are to be expected," says Christoph Lesch, Aviation expert from management consultancy Simon Kucher.

This coincides with statements by Lufthansa boss Carsten Spohr: "We will not go back down to the levels that we saw before the pandemic We will see very stable or maybe even rising ticket prices in the next few years.

” And even Europe's largest low-cost airline, Ryanair, which used to advertise with its bargain prices, expects higher ticket prices, especially around Easter and the summer holidays In the Christmas quarter, Ryanair prices were already 48 percent higher than in 2021 and 14 percent higher than before Corona.

Flight tickets cost more than before the pandemic A study by the German Aerospace Center (DLR) supports this It regularly compares the prices of low-cost airlines.

The basis is selected routes starting in Germany for tickets without extras, such as a suitcase or preferred check-in and preferred boarding Accordingly, the average fares in 2022 for a one-way trip including taxes and fees were between 68 and 119 euros, depending on the advance booking period and the airline.

In 2019 it was only 44 to 111 euros The study shows not only the increase, but even more: low flight prices, today in the best case from 15 euros, are pure advertising offers.

Only a few tickets are offered at such prices, which are far from the average price And it can even be really expensive: for some routes, passengers had to pay more than 200 euros even with low-cost airlines, and even 300 and 400 euros for short-term bookings.

Ryanair are often not the cheapest The analysis also proves again: early booking is worthwhile A month before the flight, a ticket cost at least half or even two-thirds less than a day before departure.

A week before the planned date, the price was often at least a third lower The study also shows that of the four low-cost airlines examined, Ryanair, Easyjet, Eurowings and Wizz, all of which fly to Germany, the Hungarian Wizz was the cheapest - and not the airline Ryanair, which always claims the lowest prices for itself.

For short-term bookings, Ryanair was even the most expensive Most flights from low-cost airlines start in Berlin, followed by Düsseldorf, Cologne, Hamburg and Stuttgart.

The market leader with 44 percent is Eurowings, a subsidiary of Lufthansa, which serves all routes apart from the hubs in Frankfurt and Munich There are many reasons for higher air fares.

Demand will remain high, as the booking figures to date indicate There are still no signs that high inflation is preventing people from travelling.

On the other hand, the airlines' costs are rising due to high kerosene prices and sharp wage increases for staff The airlines in Germany have not yet ramped up the offer as much as abroad.

The German aviation association BDL expects exactly 78 percent of the offer from before the pandemic for the first half of 2023, and only 56 percent on routes within Germany, where a shift in traffic to road and rail is noticeable In other countries, on the other hand, 91 percent of the offer is already being reached again.

Low-cost providers lack aircraft for a broader range The lower expansion in Germany is also due to the low-cost providers, who have around a third of the market share in Europe They don't own enough planes to expand their supply everywhere.

For them, abroad offers more growth opportunities In countries like Italy, Poland, Portugal or Scandinavia, the local airlines are weak or even insolvent.

That makes it easy for low-cost airlines to attack there For flights to Italy, for example, Ryanair is already the market leader and not the local Ita.

In Germany it is more difficult to outperform Lufthansa and Eurowings In addition, the airports have increased the fees, for example for security checks, and are restricting capacity due to the tight staff situation.

This makes it difficult to increase supply The result: Easyjet and Ryanair stopped all their domestic German routes and only fly abroad from Germany.

Easyjet has also reduced the offer in Berlin compared to the time before the pandemic and is therefore no longer the largest provider as it was shortly after the Air Berlin bankruptcy in 2017, when the British took over parts of the airline The capital's airport is also far behind in comparison to other German cities.

Only 61 percent of the seating level of 2019 will be offered there Ryanair withdrew from major airports like Frankfurt when subsidies ran out.

Ryanair also no longer flies to Stuttgart, Düsseldorf and Munich As in the past, the Irish are increasingly concentrating on smaller destinations such as Weeze on the Lower Rhine, Memmingen and Nuremberg.

The low-cost airlines will also decide whether airfares will ever go down again Ryanair, for example, has ordered many new aircraft, which are being delivered on an ongoing basis.

At some point, the largest growth routes abroad will be served Then Germany could become more interesting again.

And maybe it will be a little cheaper then .