TRAVEL COSTS

Minimal black and white line cartoon of a wide-eyed traveler holding a rolling suitcase at an airport counter while an agent behind the desk gestures, suggesting a conversation about baggage.

The war is over. Let’s bring airline baggage fees down now.

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Peace negotiators may be dotting the i’s on a deal to end the Iran war, but air travelers are paying attention to something else: the cost of their checked bags. Remember when jet fuel prices spiked after the fighting broke out earlier this year? Every major American airline rushed to raise its checked bag fees. United, American, Delta, Southwest, JetBlue, they all went up. The airlines blamed the war, and at the time they had a point, since fuel had roughly doubled. But then the ceasefire came, oil pulled back from its highs, and guess what? Not one airline has announced it is bringing its luggage fees back down. There is a name for this pattern, and once you see how it works, and what Europe just did about bags while U.S. carriers went the other way, the summer ahead at the airport starts to look very different.

Simple hand-drawn Bauhaus-inspired minimalist illustration on a white background showing a black line-drawing of an airplane taking off on the upper left and a small black line-drawing of a car on the lower right, separated by a single bold red diagonal line running corner to corner, symbolizing the widening divide between affluent air travelers spending more per trip and budget-conscious travelers priced out of summer vacations this year

The summer travel divide: How to find affordable vacations this year

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Summer travel intent has hit its lowest point since the pandemic. Deloitte’s latest summer travel survey found only 45 percent of travelers plan a summer vacation with paid lodging this year, the lowest figure in six years. Travel intent fell across every income bracket, but the drop among households earning under $100,000 was twice as steep as the decline among middle- and high-income earners, an 8-point drop versus 4 points each. The travelers still going plan to spend $4,069 on their summer vacations, up 17 percent from last year. Deloitte’s broader 2026 outlook calls this a bifurcation of standard and luxury travel and frames competition for the high-spending traveler as one of the year’s defining trends. Travelers earning between $100,000 and $199,000 show the biggest booking gap, with 37 percent fully booked versus 45 percent last year, leaving a large amount of unsold late-May inventory that revenue managers are aware of.

Cartoon of a shepherd watching sheep branded with airline logos (Delta, American, JetBlue, Southwest) jump off a cliff, illustrating airlines following each other on fuel surcharges

Your airline is lying to you about fuel surcharges

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Airlines sure have a funny way of saying thank you. 

After you spend years obsessively funneling every purchase through their co-branded credit cards and sitting in its cramped economy class seats, you finally go to redeem your “free” flight—only to find a $1,400 bill waiting for you at checkout.

Are airline tickets too expensive?

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If you haven’t looked at airfares lately, you might want to sit down before you read this. The numbers on the screen aren’t a glitch. They’re the shocking new reality of a Middle East conflict.