According to data from the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), the average domestic roundtrip base airfare in 1990 cost $288 or $554 in today's dollars.
People Also Ask
According to the Wall Street Journal, the average round trip domestic ticket in 1980 cost $592.55. Even with bag fees, water fees, oxygen fees and whatever other fee Spirit charges, the average cost in 2010 was $337.97. The moral of that story: you get what you pay for.
A flight in 1963 cost $43 ($340 with inflation), and about $360 in 2015. The most expensive an average ticket has ever been was in 2000, when a ticket cost $409 ($581 with inflation).
Despite being known as the golden age of air travel, flying in the '50s was not cheap. In fact, a roundtrip flight from Chicago to Phoenix could cost today's equivalent of $1,168 when adjusted for inflation.
Average ticket prices have been steadily decreasing since 1980. In fact, tickets are close to their lowest prices ever. But from 1950 to 1980, flying was different. Before 1978, fares and routes in the US were closely regulated by the federal government, and many routes had fixed minimum prices.
Until the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978, airlines were considered a public utility and airfares were set by the federal government, which ensured airlines always made more than enough money. Even after deregulation, a basic domestic round-trip airfare in 1979 averaged $615.82 in today's money.
Airline tickets are at some of the highest prices the industry has seen in a while, but $66,000 for a single plane ticket? That's the price of the world's most expensive commercial airplane ticket, a one-way flight on Etihad Airways from New York City/JFK to Abu Dhabi.
But falling fares in the 1970s allowed many more people to fly and undermined the exclusivity of jet travel. Sweeping cultural changes in the 1960s and 1970s reshaped the airline industry. More people began to fly, and air travel became less exclusive. Between 1955 and 1972, passenger numbers more than quadrupled.