Rising fuel prices could impact future travel plans

PORTLAND, Ore. (KPTV) - Gas prices are on the rise and travel experts are predicting the cost of jet fuel to follow suit.

“We’re seeing right now the highest jet fuel prices in over 13 years, they’re actually up 57 percent from last year,” Nancy Parrott, the vice president and general manager of CI Azumano Travel, said. She said that increase in fuel cost will be passed to travelers at some point.

“For those people that are thinking of booking their travel and their airfare they would be highly encouraged to do so sooner rather than later,” she said. FOX 12 crunched the numbers to get an idea of travel right now and looked at what it would cost to go from Portland to Palm Springs for spring break. According to Gas Buddy, if you drove, you would pay about $264 for gas roundtrip. And the cheapest roundtrip airfare FOX 12 could find was $810.

However, Parrott said to keep in mind that since spring break is so close, it’s likely that high price has more to do with supply and demand.

“Most of the inventory and air seats have already been booked and were booked months ago in many cases so for those people that have waited until this point in time to book it’s probably less about the fuel and more about the fact there just aren’t that many seats available,” she said. She does warn that airfare will likely increase because of the cost of jet fuel so people should book out as far as the holidays, if they can.

“We haven’t seen the full affect of the rise in jet fuel yet and that’s going to be happening over a period of time so those consumers, if they want to book their travel they’re locked in, they’ve got that fare,” she said.

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