{"id":439,"date":"2026-06-09T14:41:31","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T14:41:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=439"},"modified":"2026-06-09T14:41:31","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T14:41:31","slug":"airfare-prediction-apps-cant-handle-a-summer-like-this-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=439","title":{"rendered":"Airfare-Prediction Apps Can\u2019t Handle a Summer Like This One"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The casual air traveler has never had so much information at his fingertips. He sits before a battleship-worthy console of maps, prices, dates, and times; orders up grids that plot one variable against another. He is monitoring the situation. He is in conversation with his wallet, but also with his future self: Will he want to take the red-eye and leave his bags at the hotel all day? Will he want to leave the house at 4 a.m.? What\u2019s so great about Iceland, anyway?<\/p>\n

Read more A Helpful Guide to Fair Elections From the Supreme Court Majority<\/a><\/p>\n

This stupendous array of choices, once reserved for professional travel agents, is emblematic of our optimized-shopping era. Consumers don\u2019t just price-shop; they scrutinize rates of change, guided by algorithms that purport to know where prices are headed. With airfares at historic highs, the sites that advise travelers whether to buy now or wait have never felt more necessary. Unfortunately, they have rarely felt less helpful.<\/p>\n

Sites such as Hopper, Kayak, and Google Flights are trained on price histories. \u201cThey use data from the past to inform models in the present that make predictions for the future. Their level of confidence and predictive accuracy drops\u2014whether they disclose that or not\u2014precipitously when there are exogenous shocks,\u201d Oren Etzioni, a computer scientist who built and sold the pioneering airfare-prediction site Farecast to Microsoft in the 2000s, told me. The sites\u2019 powers are limited in chaotic times, and chaotic this summer is.<\/p>\n

Fare changes are a cat-and-mouse game in which airlines try to fill empty seats and capitalize on last-minute travel needs\u2014countervailing tendencies that can lead to lower or higher prices, respectively. In the main, as most air travelers have probably experienced, the overwhelming trend is for tickets to get more expensive as the date of a flight approaches. But algorithms have been able to deduce currents within that rising tide. Generally speaking, these sites offer decently reliable predictions. AirHint claims that its recommendations are correct 80 percent of the time. Hopper once claimed that its predictions were 95 percent accurate. Back in 2019, Kayak told The Wall Street Journal<\/i> that its timing advice saved the average customer $28. (The company declined to provide updated figures \u201cgiven ongoing market volatility.\u201d) These are of course data points generated by the companies themselves, but academic researchers have confirmed that making accurate airfare predictions is possible with publicly available data.<\/p>\n

Airfares are determined by three main factors: customer demand, airline competition, and input costs such as labor and fuel. Events affecting the first two categories\u2014a supersize World Cup, the disappearance of Spirit Airlines\u2014have contributed to the summer\u2019s high prices. But it\u2019s the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, and the ensuing explosion in jet-fuel costs, that may overwhelm the predictable patterns of price changes.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a binary,\u201d Zach Resnick, who runs the boutique travel service Ascend, told me. \u201cIf the blockade continues, a certain scale of disruption, especially in Asia and Europe, is not priced in.\u201d With jet-fuel prices up in the air, sudden changes such as surcharges and canceled routes could still be in the works for later this year. That makes it harder than usual to know whether to buy or wait. In April, for example, Japan Airlines tacked an additional $170 surcharge onto flights to North America and Europe, citing \u201cabnormally high\u201d fuel prices. No algorithm saw that coming.<\/p>\n

This wouldn\u2019t be the first time the flight-prediction industry\u2019s powers fell short. In 2022, as global aviation rebounded from the coronavirus pandemic, Aarian Marshall reported for Wired<\/i> that the volatility in fares had forced Google Flights to fall short of its expected prediction accuracy of 90 percent. The company paused its offer, launched in 2019, to guarantee certain fares and send refunds to buyers if prices fell. (The feature was officially reinstated in 2023 but does not seem to apply to most flights.)<\/p>\n

These days, the apps seem to be showing the most consensus on waiting to book certain far-off domestic trips. For a Labor Day flight from Chicago to Las Vegas, for example, Hopper told me to wait, AirHint told me to wait, and Google Flights told me that the cheapest time to book is usually later. Expedia suggested that the price would drop by $5 on July 20. When I asked ChatGPT Pro, I received guidance to buy now for international travel but wait for domestic travel, based on Expedia\u2019s 2026 \u201cair hacks,\u201d which posit that domestic economy prices bottom out 15 to 30 days before departure. (That figure is 31 to 45 days for international routes.) Hopper even advises waiting for prices to come down for several international flights. Aleksei Udachny, who runs AirHint, told me the ratio of \u201cwait\u201d to \u201cbuy\u201d recommendations has gone up this year.<\/p>\n

Read more Marjane Satrapi\u2019s Rebellious Life<\/a><\/p>\n

Waiting may be good advice\u2014unless something big shifts for the worse on the world stage, sending prices even higher. Although Udachny insists that this year\u2019s challenges are not exceptional, and that trends have been largely predictable, other prognosticators are less confident. \u201cWhen prices move outside typical ranges, we take a more conservative approach, sometimes limiting the recommendations rather than risk misleading travelers,\u201d a Kayak spokesperson told me in an email. For certain queries, Kayak is not providing the option of price prediction, but is merely offering current prices. The airline expert Michael Taylor, from the consumer-review company J.D. Power, told Slate<\/i>\u2019s Alex Kirshner recently that trying to buy plane tickets based on the ups and downs of the war in Iran was like trying to time the stock market\u2014subject to dumb luck.<\/p>\n

I asked Etzioni, whose app was originally called Hamlet (slogan: \u201cTo buy or not to buy\u201d), how he would handle a recommendation to wait. \u201cI\u2019d take it with a huge grain of salt, unless I was a betting man and willing to take a substantial risk,\u201d Etzioni said.<\/p>\n

The same thing that made prices high can still make them higher, because fuel is a crucial component of airline costs, accounting for about one-third of the cost of operating a flight. Already, Delta has said it is paying about twice as much for fuel as it did last year. Fuel isn\u2019t just an input cost that gets passed along to ticket buyers. High fuel costs also force airlines to cancel flights\u2014Lufthansa announced in April that it would cancel 20,000 flights; United cut capacity for this year by 5 percent in March\u2014making fewer seats available than usual. The U.S. Travel Association and the Airlines Reporting Corporation both calculate that domestic fares are up more than 20 percent this spring. Some international destinations are much more expensive than last year: Flights from the United States to London are $300 more, per Kayak, up to $1,151 from $826.<\/p>\n

Even if a lasting peace brings the Persian Gulf oil trade back to normal, airline executives have warned that a resolution may not bring down prices right away. Willie Walsh, the head of the International Air Transport Association, the trade group for the world\u2019s airlines, told The Guardian<\/i> in May that the fuel-induced price hikes are likely to continue for months and even into next year.<\/p>\n

In this environment, the savvy traveler might want to set aside the algorithms and just buy tickets sooner rather than later. Gary Leff, who writes the aviation blog View From the Wing, told me that flyers who want a specific itinerary probably shouldn\u2019t wait to see what happens\u2014last-minute bargains may require flexibility with travel dates, times, and layovers. Additionally, any potential savings from correctly timing the cheapest fare can be small compared with possible last-minute price surges if you guess wrong. He advised that those who are able can always hedge with a refundable ticket: If the price goes down, the airline may provide a credit to use at a later date. If the price goes up, you\u2019re locked in.<\/p>\n

Still, travelers comfortable with risk\u2014that a trip might not pan out, or that it may require spending 18 hours in Reykjavik\u2014may prefer to wait. Sometimes waiting works, because in the short term, airlines have a relatively inflexible supply of flights. They are guessing what the market will bear, and sometimes they get it wrong. That means last-minute deals for buyers, even in summers like this one.<\/p>\n

Read more What Donald Trump Will Never Understand About Fighting<\/a><\/p>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The normal patterns of price changes may no longer hold true.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":438,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ideas"],"yoast_head":"\nAirfare-Prediction Apps Can\u2019t Handle a Summer Like This One - Commercial Relocation Pros<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=439\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Airfare-Prediction Apps Can\u2019t Handle a Summer Like This One - Commercial Relocation Pros\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The normal patterns of price changes may no longer hold true.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=439\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Commercial Relocation Pros\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-06-09T14:41:31+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"7 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=439#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=439\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/3a3374a445f1b5d4852b1d7c15b9fe3a\"},\"headline\":\"Airfare-Prediction Apps Can\u2019t Handle a Summer Like This One\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-06-09T14:41:31+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=439\"},\"wordCount\":1404,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=439#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/06\\\/919cb697d3bf17e7034c36cc8709e142.avif\",\"articleSection\":[\"Ideas\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=439#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=439\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=439\",\"name\":\"Airfare-Prediction Apps Can\u2019t Handle a Summer Like This One - Commercial Relocation Pros\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=439#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=439#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/06\\\/919cb697d3bf17e7034c36cc8709e142.avif\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-06-09T14:41:31+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/3a3374a445f1b5d4852b1d7c15b9fe3a\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=439#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=439\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=439#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/06\\\/919cb697d3bf17e7034c36cc8709e142.avif\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/06\\\/919cb697d3bf17e7034c36cc8709e142.avif\",\"width\":1200,\"height\":625},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=439#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Airfare-Prediction Apps Can\u2019t Handle a Summer Like This One\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/\",\"name\":\"Commercial Relocation Pros\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/3a3374a445f1b5d4852b1d7c15b9fe3a\",\"name\":\"admin\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/50b1ad2e498f523425ee0a8cc5180a210646db1622662a3d56cc405d3e0c346a?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/50b1ad2e498f523425ee0a8cc5180a210646db1622662a3d56cc405d3e0c346a?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/50b1ad2e498f523425ee0a8cc5180a210646db1622662a3d56cc405d3e0c346a?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"admin\"},\"sameAs\":[\"http:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\"],\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?author=1\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Airfare-Prediction Apps Can\u2019t Handle a Summer Like This One - Commercial Relocation Pros","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=439","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Airfare-Prediction Apps Can\u2019t Handle a Summer Like This One - Commercial Relocation Pros","og_description":"The normal patterns of price changes may no longer hold true.","og_url":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=439","og_site_name":"Commercial Relocation Pros","article_published_time":"2026-06-09T14:41:31+00:00","author":"admin","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"admin","Est. reading time":"7 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=439#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=439"},"author":{"name":"admin","@id":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/#\/schema\/person\/3a3374a445f1b5d4852b1d7c15b9fe3a"},"headline":"Airfare-Prediction Apps Can\u2019t Handle a Summer Like This One","datePublished":"2026-06-09T14:41:31+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=439"},"wordCount":1404,"commentCount":0,"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=439#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/919cb697d3bf17e7034c36cc8709e142.avif","articleSection":["Ideas"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=439#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=439","url":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=439","name":"Airfare-Prediction Apps Can\u2019t Handle a Summer Like This One - Commercial Relocation Pros","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=439#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=439#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/919cb697d3bf17e7034c36cc8709e142.avif","datePublished":"2026-06-09T14:41:31+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/#\/schema\/person\/3a3374a445f1b5d4852b1d7c15b9fe3a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=439#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=439"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=439#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/919cb697d3bf17e7034c36cc8709e142.avif","contentUrl":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/919cb697d3bf17e7034c36cc8709e142.avif","width":1200,"height":625},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=439#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Airfare-Prediction Apps Can\u2019t Handle a Summer Like This One"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/#website","url":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/","name":"Commercial Relocation Pros","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/#\/schema\/person\/3a3374a445f1b5d4852b1d7c15b9fe3a","name":"admin","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/50b1ad2e498f523425ee0a8cc5180a210646db1622662a3d56cc405d3e0c346a?s=96&d=mm&r=g","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/50b1ad2e498f523425ee0a8cc5180a210646db1622662a3d56cc405d3e0c346a?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/50b1ad2e498f523425ee0a8cc5180a210646db1622662a3d56cc405d3e0c346a?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"admin"},"sameAs":["http:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com"],"url":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?author=1"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=439"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}