United CEO, Scott Kirby wants higher fares and claims they should be 15-20% higher. The uncomfortable part is that the long-term data says he has a point.
Kirby Said The Quiet Part Out Loud
United CEO Scott Kirby recently argued that fares need to rise, with United looking for yields to increase 15% to 20% to offset higher fuel costs. He also suggested airlines often wait for a crisis before pushing fares higher and that internal politics are the reason fares are low. Revenue management places higher fares, marketing runs sales, and the two aren’t working in tandem. Raising airfares and holding them 15-20% higher will always win the board room on an earnings call but travelers bristle at any price increase (while choosing not to fly Spirit which gets them to their destination cheaper.)
But the question remains, is airfare too low?
The Numbers Tell The Story
Inflation-adjusted domestic fares are far lower than their modern peaks. Examining a domestic long-haul which features both business and leisure traffic and is remains vital to the country all-year, here’s what New York-Los Angeles looked like over the decades.
| Decade | Year | One-Way Fare (Nominal) | One-Way Fare (2026 Dollars) | Roundtrip (2026 Dollars) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1960s | 1965 | 278 | 2725 | 5450 |
| 1970s | 1974 | 330 | 2080 | 4160 |
| 1980s | 1985 | 300 | 870 | 1740 |
| 1990s | 1995 | 250 | 500 | 1000 |
| 2000s | 2000 | 300 | 575 | 1150 |
| 2010s | 2017 | 230 | 280 | 560 |
| 2020s | 2025 | 200 | 200 | 400 |
From just the eight years prior, the route priced 28% cheaper in 2025 than it did in 2017 against a total inflation number (which always excludes energy and food costs) of 31% during the same period. The rest of traveler purchases cost 31% in 2025 than they did in 2017 yet the price of this trip actually came down. It’s down 435% since the mid 1980s following de-regulation and enhanced competition.
Cheap Fares Changed The Whole Business
The 1970s and 1980s were different planets. Regulation, limited route competition, smaller fleets, fewer passengers, and less efficient aircraft all helped keep fares high. Deregulation changed that, and Brookings found travelers in 1996 paid about 28% less than they likely would have under continued regulation.
IATA has also found that the real cost of air travel has fallen about 1.7% per year on average since 1970, while global air traffic kept growing. That is the entire story in one sentence: flying got cheaper, so more people flew.
The Catch: Nobody Wants Kirby To Be Right
Kirby is right statistically, but that does not mean passengers should volunteer for higher fares. Airlines already unbundled the product, squeezed cabins, monetized bags, monetized seats, monetized boarding order, and then acted shocked when customers noticed. It’s worth noting that a fare in 1995 that cost $500 in 2026 dollars is a different fare entirely.
The broad truth is this: air travel is historically cheap, but it often feels expensive because the experience has been carved into little paid fragments. A $200 United Airlines fare plus two checked bags, seat selection, and food would have pushed this one-way fare closer to $350 which remains a 42% reduction from 1995 but not as stark as 250% cheaper is it looks when comparing fare alone. And, of course, in 1995 aircraft were far less efficient than they are now with the exception of a handful of Boeing 777s still flying from the era. Short haul flying certainly costs less than it did then.
Shareholders might champion higher fares, and consumers might push back (who wants to pay more?) but he’s not wrong, in fact, historically he’s a little light.
Conclusion
Kirby’s argument is uncomfortable because it is mostly true. Airfares, adjusted for inflation, are low by historical standards, and the modern airline business has trained passengers to expect access to the sky at prices that would have seemed absurdly cheap a generation ago. But the passenger response is also fair. No one outside an airline boardroom is rooting for higher fares, especially when the product feels less generous than it used to. Kirby may be right on the spreadsheet. That does not mean anyone has to enjoy hearing it.
What do you think?
most importantly, US airlines were never fully deregulated including being given the ability to consolidate or operate their businesses the way they want.
Approaching 50 years of domestic airline deregulation, the US is potentially on the cusp of having 4 global megacarriers with a certainty that WN will become a longhaul widebody carrier, add domestic first class and lounges and AA now fixing its revenue problems. AS will be a large at least regional (as in not fully nationwide) global carrier so the US could have more competition using the premium airline model that DL used to achieve its financial success and UA is now focusing on largely by copying DL’s model.
and consolidation, as long expected will probably not involve the big 4 certainly if they overlap with their “acquirees” in major markets.
Low fare economy cabin capacity will shrink as carriers prove that size matters – as is true in every other industry – and the low fare model doesn’t work due to labor costs – which have kept up w/ inflation much more so than air fares have.
Tim’s incessant push for basically DL-UA duopoly in this industry is just sad. It stifles innovation and competition, and harms workers and consumers. We also need more, not less, protections, like an EU261-equivalent in the US, which I’ve long advocated for. The financialization of critical transportation isn’t a good thing. And the unregulated nature of these frequent flyer programs is leading to repeated devaluations to the point of it feeling more like a bait-and-switch; the credit-cards-with-wings era is reaching a breaking-point. All that before we get to the jet fuel shortages.
do you just mindlessly autotype your same canned response whatever the topic?
I just said in the post you replied to that the US could very well be on the way to having 4 1/2 global/legacy-like carriers and you interpret that to mean I favor a DL-UA duopoly?
as for consumer protections, every real blogger knows that EU passenger service “rights’ don’t really work on paper as well as they are promised – and US carriers have decent policies. Gary just covered AA’s adoption of mass meal voucher issuance.
It just isn’t as bad as you paint it out to be.
I read what you wrote, but it’s a purposeful misdirect. You know you want that duopoly.
As for consumer protections, enjoy these final years where corporate greed and blatant corruption seemingly escape all accountability; it’s clear that you and the industry would rather be unreliable, harm workers and passengers, and get away with it. People have had enough. Yes, the Europeans have a better system, and even so, it can be further improved.
Sorry 1990, but you conveniently ignored the overwhelming evidence in the story. Airline travel has never been more safe, affordable, convenient and efficient with a larger variety of offerings to please any customer at any price point, and the two most valuable airlines in the world hope to make 10% profit margins. So sorry your S&H Green Stamps aren’t worth what they were last year. The entitled whining of the people who generally ‘earned’ their miles from tickets their employers paid for is comical. Meanwhile your virtue signaling is betrayed by your patronizing of the airlines of authoritative petro-states that leverage kafala to build their faux cities.
Oh no… the ‘magical word’ safety… stop everything! Next time, add ‘national security’ so you can do whatever you want and no one can stop you… rebel, you know we’ve had serious, systemic safety issues in aviation in the US in the last few years. Need I remind you of the midair collision (AA5342), the countless near-midairs (just recently, JFK, 4/20/26 AA4464/AC8554; and, BNA, 4/18/26, WN507/1152), Air Canada 8646… c’mon, we have serious staffing and equipment issues at FAA, too. My goodness.
As far as ‘affordable,’ although Matt makes his argument using historical statistics, these prices are rising, and because of inflation, the lower half of the economic spectrum is gonna be out of this mix (hence the race to premium at the Big-3). Perhaps, if things continue down this path, we’ll see more La Compagnie equivalents (all-business), because those are the only folks who will be able to afford to fly.
As far as ‘convenient and efficient,’ yeah, that’s the issue. It isn’t always. And, when it’s under the airlines’ control, say, maintenance or staffing, they should compensate passengers for their failure. That’s what they do in the UK, EU, and Canada. We should do that in the US, too. People pay a premium for tickets on specific routes, dates, times. I’m not upset over 15-30 minute delays; 3+ hours… we got problems. Missed connections, missed cruises, business meetings, etc. There’s a better way, and compensating passengers is a baseline that we should have as a standard.
It’s obvious you prefer your personal perceptions over the overwhelming evidence and data. Feel free to show us a shred of evidence that supports your obviously erroneous and painfully repetitive complaints.
https://www.cirium.com/thoughtcloud/flying-safer-than-ever-the-evolution-of-aviation-safety/
Your link doesn’t support your opinion; you sound more like Tim, where his preference is ‘fact,’ and everyone else is wrong. I provided specifics; clearly, you chose not to ‘interpret’ the data I provided.
Wow, who would have thought it was possible to overestimate your analytical abilities. Amazing.
On this I have to agree with Rebel
I don’t have data to back up what I’m saying in this comment– this is one person’s anecdotal experience. For the routes I fly, I have seen a significant increase in price over the past 9 months or so– and this increase happened before the February events that have increased oil prices worldwide. Despite booking far in advance, I have paid over $800 for domestic economy round trips that are under 2 hours, and paid $2k for an economy round trip transatlantic flight that was booked months in advance during off-season. Fares like this were unheard of in 2024 or early 2025 (for me at least). The fares I was seeing in January 2026 seemed noticeably higher than the fares I was seeing 6-9 months earlier.
To this amateur looking at the industry, it looks like the large carriers have gotten adept at competing with the low cost carriers by offering competitive no frills, low fares in the back of the plane, while also making better margins by selling upgraded services in the front of the plane. This is squeezing the low cost carriers out right now. However, if the big carriers bump their lowest fares by 20%, I can’t help but wonder if that won’t open up some breathing room for the low cost carriers again.
“I don’t have data to back up what I’m saying in this comment” … that’s fine. Share your data-point. In the aggregate, all our individual data-points do matter. When the so-called, self-proclaimed ‘experts’ like Delta-fanatic Tim Dunn attempt to gate-keep and tell folks like you or I to ‘STFU,’ remind them, that’s no way to speak to their customers.
As you may recall, if you’re planning to fly this summer, book asap before prices rise!
Demand for air travel remains strong, and frankly, Scott Kirby seems to be counting on that.
Fares WERE low. Not anymore. Typically flying between our homes in suburban Chicago and Scottsdale is $225-299 purchased a month or more in advanced. Now the prices begin at $500 and arc to over $600 for main cabin. We’ve been flying back and forth for years. During the pandemic the prices and passenger numbers plummeted. They bounced back to typical. I do not anticipate prices to return to typical as long as 47 is waging war.
The Trump administration chose to wage a war without deciding on its aims, mapping out a strategy, planning for contingencies or even being able to explain itself. The goal was regime change — until it wasn’t. The demand was unconditional surrender — until it wasn’t. Deadlines were issued and then erased. Threats of total destruction were made and then pulled back. Until there is some path toward lasting peace the economics of supply, demand, and scarcity will keep prices 2x their previous average.
@ThePerspective – When 2026 full-year numbers come out, you may be right that airfare is significantly higher. For now, JetA is up 82% from this time last year, but that’s not the ONLY cost airlines incur. So if the price is now more than double there may be other forces at play like demand, supply. product, and other external costs.
APPLES AND ORANGES
You are comparing a ticket in the 60s to now???
Airfare included 2 bags, a meal, drinks, playing cards etc. and was usually refundable
You have the most small nit-picky point. But, the simple fact is the following. You can fly transcon in F today, getting your meal, 2 75-pound bags, and drinks for the same price as coach then, adjusted for inflation. You don’t get playing cards, but get video. Oh, and you have enough left over to buy a lifetime supply of cards for your neighborhood which you give them at the lobster dinner you throw for them. How tough is it to see $5450 versus $400 offers a lot of wiggle room?
With you. The lack of human staffing, customer service and death by a thousand cuts makes what we experience today something far different. Difficult to adjust the pricing on that value.
How soon we forget. I can quickly compare all airlines serving a city pair or book my flight in minutes on any airline app with my phone from anywhere. 40 years ago the same required visiting a travel agent, discussing all the tradeoffs and settling on an inferior itinerary costing hours of personal time and more $. Onboard one generally gets back what they put out with occasional exceptions.
It has never been better to be an airline passenger, but the entitlement and whining are endless from the most pampered customers whose companies are often paying.
@TOM BRADLEY – There’s an entire paragraph in this post making that exact case. We are still lower than even 25 years ago with all of those things added back in at today’s current market prices.
Every time I hear some whiner complain about seat width reduction (not true for most planes) and pitch reduction (true), I point the following out. Extra legroom coach and premium economy are today, adjusted for inflation, way less expensive than the regular coach in the “golden era” of flight. F/J can also be cheaper. Stop b!tch!ng about the seat your “are stuck in” that you bought with change you found in the couch. What is different today is they offer a lousy experience for those who want to fly for bus money. And, the Greyhound folk complain they don’t have legroom.