I have been twittering and emailing lately with Cheapoair and they recently supplied me with their Travel Trends August 2013 Data.
Some interesting stuff –
The top 10 Domestic (US) destinations (by airport code, of course) are:
- LAX-Los Angeles
- MCO-Orlando
- JFK-New York Kennedy
- LAS-Las Vegas
- ORD-Chicago OHare
- SEA-Seattle/Tacoma
- SFO-San Francisco
- FLL-Ft Lauderdale
- DEN-Denver
- LGA-New York LaGuardia
Average ticket prices have skyrocketed from last year to this year to all of these destinations by an average of 13.7%, with an average fare price of $435. Who said it was cheap to travel domestically!
We also were given a breakdown around international destinations. Surprisingly Montego Bay Airport and Kingston Airport made the top 10 (Jamaica is a tiny island!!).
- YYZ-Toronto Intl
- LHR-London Heathrow
- CDG-Paris
- CUN-Cancun
- YVR-Vancouver
- MNL-Manila
- MEX-Mexico City
- FCO-Rome Fiumicino
- MBJ-Montego Bay
- KIN-Kingston
Ticket prices have basically stayed the same to all these destinations, with an average price of $754, and the average number of passengers visiting this collection of destinations have also generally stayed flat. This means no uptick in demand for island destinations (in fact, about 30% less passengers are reported to be flying to the Jamaica airports, but still enough to be in the top 10). The airport that saw a huge increase in passengers was Manila, with a 45.66% increase from last year (it’s also one of the most expensive flights from the US of the bunch). tripchi needs to hop on that bandwagon and visit – still hasn’t been!
A few more interesting findings about the traveler demographic in this data.
The Top 3 destinations for 18-24 year olds were:
Domestic
International
Big surprise here. You mean 18-24 year olds find Cancun, Paris, and Bangkok appealing? Shocker! What I do find interesting is that Denver is a popular destination for this age bracket (maybe they’re just transiting??).
For 25-34 year olds, the popular domestic destinations are exactly the same as their younger counterparts, but we see the international choices shift to slightly more sophisticated places:
And if you’re wondering which demographics do the most advance bookings, wait no further! Females book in advance nearly 75% of the time, outplanning their male peers who only book 50% in advance. The highest proportion of travelers traveling are in the 45+ age bracket, and they plan more trips than any other group (a third of the time more than 5 weeks in advance). I don’t know about you, bu I’m a Gen Y, and 5 weeks in advance is too far to think, much less plans! 25-34 year olds are the next age group more likely to book in advance, and I’d bet business travel influences this planning propensity because I’m not sure it’s genetically in our DNA.
That’s the travel news folks! And thanks for Cheapoair again for sharing the data. If you liked it, thank them by tweeting!