When traveling during the "May Day" holiday, most people have bought air tickets in advance, but the price of air tickets is "diving" near the holiday, which makes many people shout "loss".
The day before departure
Airfares have been reduced
"I haven't set off yet, it's already 40 yuan cheaper. On April 28, Mr. Sun from Hefei said that he took a flight from Hefei to Taiyuan, Shanxi Province on April 29, and when he checked the return ticket, he accidentally found that the departure ticket for the same flight had been reduced in price.
Mr. Sun said that he is also a travel enthusiast, according to his previous experience, such routes from Hefei to Taiyuan are not popular routes, and the ticket price will not fluctuate too much on weekdays, "Holidays will definitely rise, so it is cost-effective to buy tickets in advance." But I didn't expect that the price was reduced the day before departure, "The voyage is not long, and the full price ticket is less than 1,000 yuan, and it is directly reduced by 40 yuan." He said bluntly: "I don't understand, when I booked before, the platform also showed that the discount ticket booking was tight."
It is reported that as the "May Day" holiday approaches, Mr. Sun's ticket buying situation is not an exception. Some netizens said that they bought a ticket from Zhengzhou to Jieyang, and the price booked in advance was 2,501 yuan, and then they found that the exact same flight was 1,391 yuan, with a difference of more than 1,000 yuan.
The picture is taken from netizen comments.
This year is known as the "busiest May Day in history"
Why is the price of air tickets "diving"?
According to the data released by the flight data service company Feichangzhun on April 26, the total take-off and landing of domestic airports during this year's "May Day" holiday is expected to be 151612, with an average of 30,322 takeoffs and landings per day, an increase of 8.99% over last year's "May Day" holiday and an increase of 36.2% compared with 2019. During this year's May Day holiday, China's civil aviation will break last year's record and usher in the busiest May Day holiday in history.
At the same time, the average price of domestic economy class air tickets during the "May Day" holiday in the past seven days was 852 yuan (excluding tax), down 1.13% year-on-year, and down 22% from the average price in the previous seven days.
At present, there are still low-cost direct flight tickets on many popular routes on May 1, such as Shanghai to Urumqi ticket price from 690 yuan, Shanghai to Beijing ticket price from 460 yuan, Guangzhou to Beijing ticket price from 530 yuan.
On May 1, the price of air tickets from Guangzhou to Beijing.
The closer to the "May Day" holiday, the lower the ticket price, why is this?"At present, the overall average price paid is gradually decreasing, but this is a normal phenomenon, the ticket price of some routes will be reduced after the sale of train tickets, but this year most of them are still more than 6% off. Xiao Peng, a researcher at Qunar Big Data Research Institute, said that judging from the booking situation of this year's "May Day", there is no obvious diving on popular tourist routes, and a few flights are still on sale at low prices.
Xiao Peng said that as the holiday approaches, most of the ticket prices on sale on popular routes are between 6-8% off, and the average price paid is the same as that of the "May Day" in 2023. On the morning of May 1, starting from Beijing, there are some low-cost tickets about 5% off on long routes such as Kunming and Urumqi, but the price of return tickets is higher, the price is about 20% off after 12 o'clock on May 5, and some flights are full price; May 2-4 is the price trough, and you can travel at a staggered peak. "Passengers who have not yet confirmed their itinerary still have flights to pick up, and they need to pay attention to the price of the return ticket. Xiao Peng said frankly.
Ctrip's statistics also show that during the "May Day" period, the price of air tickets from Kunming to Chengdu, Shanghai to Kunming, Xiamen to Shanghai, Tianjin to Chengdu and Beijing to Sanya dropped significantly, down by about 3% year-on-year.
According to the analysis of people in the civil aviation industry, there seems to be a contradiction between "busy" and "price reduction", but there is actually an internal connection. It is the practice of airlines to adjust capacity and increase flight volume during holidays. It is precisely because airlines have increased too much capacity that the supply exceeds demand, and there are still many seats that have not been sold during the upcoming holidays, so the price is temporarily adjusted and promoted.
In addition to the factors of airlines increasing capacity, the diversion of civil aviation passenger flow by high-speed rail is also the reason why the plane is not full, resulting in a temporary plunge in air ticket prices. As more and more new high-speed rail lines have been put into use across the country in recent years, people have more choices for how to travel.
Regarding the "diving" of the ticket price, some netizens said that it was expensive to buy and "heart congestion"; some netizens said that they just picked up a bargain; and some netizens said that it is cost-effective to refund and rebuy even if the handling fee is deducted.
The picture is taken from netizen comments.
Have you bought a ticket for the May Day holiday?
Source: China Economic Net WeChat, Comprehensive Guangming Network, WeChat, Dazhong Network, WeChat, etc