The perfect storm against the interests of the economy of the Pitiusan residents is on its way to becoming a perfect hurricane. In addition to the supply crisis of many goods there is a more than likely increase in the price of tickets to enter or leave the islands, both by plane and by boat, as a result of the rise in fuel prices, a circumstance that also compromises the viability of many airlines, hit harder by the health crisis that began in mid-March last year than other companies.
The warning is being issued on this occasion by the Association of Travel Agencies of the Balearic Islands (Aviba), whose president, Xisco Mulet, is convinced that the rise in ticket prices is “inevitable”. “The way airline companies are at the moment, and with the rise in fuel prices, we practically take it for granted that fares will go up in a few months’ time; we just need to know when it will happen,” he says.
Mulet recalls that “it is not the first time” that airlines pass on an increase in the costs of their activity to the price of their fares, regardless of its origin. “Most of the airlines are bankrupt and survive thanks to loans from their governments. They accumulate many debts, whether with suppliers, customers or travel agencies, to which they are not reimbursing what remains outstanding from the covid…. In this situation it is more than foreseeable that a rise in the price of fuel” will make tickets more expensive. “It is a perfect excuse and we have already experienced it in other years,” he adds.
In relation to how much tickets can go up, Mulet acknowledges that it is “difficult to know” because everything is conditioned by “supply and demand”.
This new crisis is also likely to affect the price of raw materials because, obviously, transporting goods by sea will become more expensive.
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