Holiday airplane tickets jumped 23% this year. Hopper measured it. Hopper is an app that watches flight prices and then tells you when to buy. It's like having a personal financial advisor, except instead of losing your retirement in municipal bonds, you lose an extra $200 flying to see relatives who don't like you.
November flights exist on a spectrum. Some are cheap. Most are expensive. The expensive ones go where people actually want to be on Thanksgiving. The cheap ones go to Tulsa on a Wednesday morning with two layovers and a priest performing last rites before takeoff.
Retail traders see this headline and think they've discovered alpha. They'll buy airline stocks because "prices are up." They'll ignore that higher ticket prices mean fewer bookings. They'll ignore fuel costs, labor disputes, and the fact that airlines lose money more reliably than a casino with a roulette wheel that only lands on bankruptcy.
The cheapest flights are cheap because nobody wants them. The most expensive flights are expensive because everyone needs them. This is not market inefficiency. This is called supply and demand. We learned it in third grade. You were sick that day because you ate paste.
Hopper's entire business model depends on you being too stupid to check Google Flights yourself. They monetize your incompetence. They turn your inability to click three buttons into venture capital. And it works. Because you'll pay $5.99 a month for an app to tell you that yes, flying on Thanksgiving costs more than flying literally any other day of the year.
23% more expensive means your family reunion now costs as much as a used jet ski, except the jet ski holds its value better and doesn't make you listen to your uncle's crypto portfolio updates.
Photo by Izyan Sultanali on Unsplash
Leave a Comment