Travel: flight prices in Italia (and Spain) set to fall throughout the summer
Eurostat figures: in August, Spain was the only country where ticket prices fell by the most (-15.8 per cent)
The difficult international situation has taken its toll on holidays in the summer of 2026, but with unexpected consequences: with the decline also recorded in August, the whole of the summer in Italia was marked by a fall in the cost of airfares, which dropped by 11.8 per cent last month compared with the same month in 2025.
Eurostat figures show that the average change in the European Union was slightly negative, at -0.4%, remaining well below the general inflation rate (3.2%). Whilst in Spain the fall was even more pronounced (-15.8%), in other countries buying a flight ticket in August proved to be much more expensive than 12 months earlier: in Turkey and Greece, for example, there was an increase of 18.2% and 16.3% respectively.
Cheaper holiday packages
Another price category also fell last month in our country: holidays, namely travel packages: -4.8% compared with an average increase of 3.2% across the EU (which is, however, in line with inflation). Here too, Madrid recorded the sharpest decline (-5.2%), with only three other countries (Estonia, Montenegro and Ireland) in negative territory.
The fall in flight prices
As mentioned, the August decline comes on the heels of falls in the other two summer months favoured by holidaymakers: in June, prices had fallen by 10.3% and in July by 5.5%. But in reality, the decline had begun in April (-12.8%) and continued in May (-3.4%), that is to say, shortly after the geopolitical upheaval caused by the US attack on Iran (late February), which affected many people’s willingness to travel and prompted airlines to adopt fare policies to counter the negative effects on flight occupancy.
