Ed Bastian said airline ticket prices will come down only when Delta Air Lines can add more flights, because the air traffic control system is congested. He said the market is “kind of logjammed,” which is keeping supply tight for travelers even after oil prices eased.
“People ask me all the time – what's happening with prices?” Bastian said on Tuesday. “Prices will come down when we can fly more, when there's more supply, it's a supply and demand. Right now we're kind of logjammed.”
Delta Air Lines and the supply squeeze
Bastian said there is “not a lot of supply” Delta can bring in because the air traffic control system is congested. He said opening up the skies and bringing more flow would help bring pricing down and enable more people to travel to more places, tying fare relief to capacity rather than a single cost line.
He also said prices rose about 10 to 15% across the airline industry after the initial shock, and that level was “probably the right level.” The point for travelers is straightforward: if flights cannot be added, lower fuel costs alone do not automatically translate into cheaper tickets.
Fuel costs and nearly $2 billion
Oil prices have come down now, Bastian said, but he added that Delta’s rising energy costs hit the airline’s bottom line by nearly $2 billion. He said Delta had no choice but to raise ticket prices. That leaves passengers facing a fare structure that has already adjusted once and may not reset until more seats can be offered.
“We have seen more progress being made to eliminate those bottlenecks and continue to allow aviation to flow smoothly in the last year and a half than we've had probably in the last number of decades. It's that significant,” he said. He also said Delta has recaptured investment-grade ratings from all three major credit agencies, showing the carrier is still trying to absorb higher costs while keeping access to capital intact.
More flow, more travel
“I hope, as an American people, we continue to invest in that future,” Bastian said. “It's probably the smartest investment that we can make, because what we're doing is, we're making the air flow more smoothly. We're enabling people not just for safety – safety is always our top priority – but [allowing] for more flights,” he said. For travelers, the practical takeaway is that fare relief depends on whether capacity constraints ease enough for Delta to put more seats into the market.
The unresolved issue is how fast those bottlenecks can be cleared. Until the system can handle more flow, Bastian’s message points to the same answer for ticket prices: more supply first, lower fares after.
