By Jennifer Smith
This Thanksgiving, Northeastern students will be flocking home by the thousands. For some, this could be the only time they’ve seen their family and friends in person since the beginning of the semester. For others, that reunion may still be held off. The culprit: Increased airfare costs.
Airfare prices have increased significantly over the past three years. This has been brought on in large part by rising fuel costs, according to an Associated Press article that says the price of fuel is 48 percent higher than a year ago, with a corresponding rise in fares. In addition, the number of complimentary checked bags permitted has decreased, piling on additional baggage costs. Limited flight options pose another problem in making travel arrangements.
Rising oil prices have impacted almost every domestic and international airline. Even historically cheaper airlines, like Southwest, have been engaged in a series of fare increases over the past few years.
Freshman business major Stephanie Quiroz said she will not be returning to her home in Caracas, Venezuela for Thanksgiving or Christmas. She may visit a friend in New York for Thanksgiving, and she will meet with some close family at her brother’s graduation in Missouri over Christmas break, but Quiroz will not see her home or close friends at all during the school year.
“It sounds like a lot of time … but I’ll be coming home next year,” Quiroz said. “It will mostly be friends in Venezuela that I’ll miss.”
Of Northeastern’s almost 16,000 undergraduates, 62 percent are from out of state. This includes the 20 percent of the student body that hails from international locations, where airplanes are often the only methods of transport home.
Freshman English major Emma Preslar doesn’t fly to her home in New Jersey, making vacation travel a relative non-issue.
“If it’s a short break, then they are [staying in Boston],” Preslar said of her friends whose homes aren’t as easily accessible. “It has to be a good amount of time to make it worth the cost.”
Even in the case of longer holiday breaks, some international students can’t stomach the hiked prices.
“If I wanted to visit home before Christmas, I couldn’t go over Christmas break,” freshman business major Nicole Santoni of Puerto Rico said. “I have to choose my options, while before I didn’t have to.”
The increased fares are cutting down on the total amount of times students can travel within their families’ means.
“We don’t travel a lot, because of the price,” Quiroz said. “Only once a year, internationally.”
Some students select specific times to fly home each year, and turn the focus to planning many months in advance to save on pricey tickets, but planning in advance can be difficult when working within an indefinite time frame. Students’ determined times for moving in and out can limit their ability to get cheap fares.
Undeclared sophomore Katie Tsutakawa flies between Boston, Washington D.C. and her home in Seattle “the same few times [a year], regardless.”
The New York Times reported “the cheapest round-trip fare from any of the top 50 airports in the country averaged $367 — 10 percent higher than the average of $333 for the same time last year.”
Unfortunately for college students on a budget, it is unlikely that the fares will drop in the coming months. Airlines are having no difficulty filling their planes, even at these increased prices. The New York Times article attributes this to a growing demand for business and leisure fliers, as well as the fact that the airlines have not increased their capacity with the economic recovery.
Limited flights into cities without international ports make multiple flights necessary and possibly add extra expense to a trip. Factor in multiple layovers and the result is longer travel times.
Especially in the case of international students, alternate means of travel are not always feasible. When balancing the time and cost expended, flying can be the only possibility.
“It’s cheaper to [fly] from Miami to Boston and Boston to Miami, but I don’t think there’s any other way to travel to the U.S.,” said Santoni. “Boats aren’t really an option.”
As for American students, there’s a limited distance that most students are willing to travel by ground.
“Technically I could drive,” Tsutakawa said, “But it’d be like three days. Driving would end up being more [expensive] overall.”
As most airlines have rescinded their free checked-bag allowance, there is now an additional cost to be aware of. At approximately $50 a checked bag, “you always have to be careful what you’re buying and [watch] the weight,” Quiroz said.
According to the AP article, increased baggage costs alone have added more to the cost of flying than fare increases.
“I am in complete disagreement with [the new policy],” Santoni said. “We used to get two free bags. It used to be an advantage for the U.S., but now it doesn’t exist.”
