UK holiday flight prices drop up to 39% for popular overseas destinations

Travel search engine KAYAK reports a substantial decline in average return ticket prices from the UK to a range of long-haul destinations for the Christmas and New Year period. The deepest discounts appear on US routes, where Atlanta’s average fare of £587 is down 39% year-on-year, Washington DC is 27% cheaper at £514, and Los Angeles has fallen 20% to £543. Savings of 26% to £208 are also recorded for Agadir, Morocco, while Jamaican hubs Kingston and Montego Bay show price drops of 21% and 18% respectively.

European short-haul options remain affordable, with return flights to Dublin, Barcelona, Milan, Prague, Madrid and Amsterdam all priced below £150. KAYAK notes that flights departing on 23 December cost about 36% less than those on the heavily searched 19 December date, and that fares typically hit their lowest point roughly six weeks before the holidays before rising in the final week.