Elizabeth Smith was stunned after she saw how much a roundtrip ticket from Spokane, Washington, to Orlando, Florida, cost for this year’s spring break — just six years after her family’s first trip to Disney World.

In 2016, seven people went together and paid $350 round-trip for airfare. CNBC reports that the exact same flights are currently more than $1,000 each for those who want to travel. Smith is a schoolteacher in Idaho. “We were truly shocked. “I would never have thought that I could afford as much to fly for Disney than I did for my airfare.”

For months, the mother of three says she scoured the web for cheap flights – including Google Flights, Kayak, and Expedia.

All things considered, don’t purchase now. Google and we expect higher prices. She said, “So I continued to wait.”

These prices have not fallen. 

Smith stated that students who were going to spring break to visit their families have told him that either they cannot fly or that they will have to travel because they don’t have the money to pay for airline tickets. The prices are so expensive.

Smith and her students don’t have to suffer from sticker shock when it comes to travel costs. Hopper analyzes historic airfare data to determine that domestic tickets have risen by 26% in the last year, to $290. International flights are $730 per roundtrip. Due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, rising fuel costs are driving the increase.

Anna Thompson from Miami University, Ohio started to plan her spring break vacation months ago. 

I started to look at the West Coast. “Really anywhere that’s warm,” she stated. “I started to look south as well – in areas like Florida and Louisiana.”

However, her plans of relaxing at the beach with friends were cancelled when she discovered how expensive it would be.

Thompson stated to CNBC that the flight prices were much higher than what he expected. I remember seeing them months before, when they were close to $100-150. But upon looking again – they had skyrocketed upwards of $300, $400 for the same flights.”

Thompson stated that she used an app on her phone to search for a flight cheap to Boston with her brother.

Analysts say that the Russian invasion in Ukraine, as well as global oil worries continue to drive crude oil and jet fuel prices up. their highest level in 13 years.

Damodaran explained that the higher prices of jet fuel that airlines have to deal with means that travelers are paying more for their airfares.

Based on Hopper’s 2022 Spring Break travel reportIn July, the average domestic airfare price will rise by 7%. As for international airfare, “that one’s a little harder to gauge right now – especially with the situation in Ukraine and Russia,” Damodaran said.

Experts in travel anticipate that Americans may rethink their transatlantic travel plans if geopolitics keep making headlines. Hopper reports that flight searches to Europe from America have dropped by 9 percent after Russia invaded Ukraine.

Booking Holdings, the world’s biggest online travel site, announced Tuesday that occupancy rates fell by 10% over the past week, in comparison to 2019, mainly due to Russia and Eastern Europe.

“We may just see travelers stay closer to home … until the situation, you know, eases a little bit,” said Jan Freitag, national director for Hospitality Market Analytics at CoStar.