Dreaming of summer travel? Tired of winter, like, yesterday? Have we got good news for you: According to flight tracking app Hopper, summer flights to Europe will be the cheapest they've been in three years. That means you can save money and start looking forward to finally taking that Great Italian Road Trip, listening to fado music in Lisbon, sipping Georgian wine in Kakheti, and tackling this list of epic European desserts.
Using its database of 25 billion flight prices, Hopper found that on average flights to Europe will be around $909 round-trip, which is down about two percent from last year. (If that doesn't seem low enough to you, spring flights have an average of $637, so book now to get in on those fares.) The city to watch? London, where Brexit is affecting flight prices and the pound, setting up travelers for cheaper flights (around $782 round-trip, on average, compared to $814 in 2017).
But other factors are keeping the cost of flights in and out of Europe down—even as low cost carriers that have pushed fares to drop falter (R.I.P. WOW). The first? JetBlue announcing its first transatlantic flights to London. Even though the first flights won't take off until 2021, JetBlue has historically caused a 12 percent fare drop on a new international route, and fares between London, Boston, and New York are already decreasing, according to Hopper. But flights to other European destinations like Madrid, Lisbon, Dublin, Amsterdam, and Paris that JetBlue flagged as potential expansions are also on watch and expected to drop as competitors fight to keep customers from jumping ship, so to speak, to the disruptive American airline. Last but not least, you can thank the greenback: The U.S. dollar is strong, which means that Europe is more affordable than in previous years. (As of writing, one U.S. dollar equals £0.76, or €0.88.)
As for finding those cheap flights we keep talking about, take a page from our playbook: set free price trackers, compare booking sites, use flexible dates, and above all else, get over the myth that there's one magic day to book plane tickets. What are you waiting for?
Additional reporting by Katherine LaGrave.
