Air Travel Is About to Get Even More Expensive

The average cost for a domestic flight in the U.S. went up 25% from the start of 2026 to April 27, according to Kayak’s online dashboard, while international flights have gone up 62%. But hold on to your seats, because experts agree that the closure of Spirit Airlines is about to make flights even more expensive. Spirit’s flights accounted for less than 2% of total flights in the U.S., according to the Wall Street Journal, but they still helped establish a baseline for how cheap airline tickets could get in consumers’ minds. That kept ticket prices more reasonable, especially when Spirit was directly competing with the larger carriers on certain routes. When Spirit abandoned several U.S. routes during tough times for the company between the second quarter of 2024 and the second quarter of 2025, the average price on those routes soared by 23%, according to the Journal. And we’re about to see something similar happen to airfares in the U.S. more broadly. Spirit was already struggling before the start of President Donald Trump’s war against Iran, which was launched Feb. 28. But the war only made things worse, cutting off 20% of the world’s oil supply, which travels through the Strait