Though international air travel may be increasingly pricey, many Penn students are choosing to fly anyway.
According to an analysis of airfare ticket sales conducted by Sabre Airline Solutions - an airline consulting and software distribution firm - the average price of airline tickets purchased for transatlantic flights this spring has increased from last year.
Travelers who purchased tickets through Jan. 31 for flights during the upcoming months of April and May paid an average of 6.9 percent more this year than those who purchased tickets for the same period in 2007, according to the Sabre analysis.
But Penn students who travel internationally have had varied responses to recent price increases.
"Honestly, it's not that expensive overall," Wharton sophomore Carlotta Siniscalco said.
Siniscalco, who lives in Italy, said when she buys tickets over the Internet she usually pays about $550 round-trip. That price, she said, is about half of what she paid last year, taking the exchange rate into account.
Marc Berman, owner of Berman Travel, a travel agency based in Atlantic City, attributed rising airfare prices to recent increases in fuel costs.
"If there is an influx of gas prices, airfares go up and are passed right on to the buyer," Berman said.
Siniscalco said she was able to find a cheap enough flight to fly home for Thanksgiving break, but Engineering freshman Burcu Kement was not as fortunate.
"I can't go back except for summer break and December break," said Kement, a resident of Turkey.
"It's very expensive," she said of her tickets, which have cost about $1,200 round-trip.
Wharton and College sophomore Kseniya Demchenko said that she flies to Russia frequently to visit family, and ticket prices have not affected her decision to travel.
However, rising airfare prices did have an effect on where some students decided to go for the upcoming spring vacation.
"It definitely made a difference as to where I was going," College freshman Atlee Melillo said. "I decided to go to Florida instead of Mexico or the Caribbean because it was cheaper."
But Berman said increases in airfare have not adversely affected his business and that a lot of students still made plans to travel over spring break.
"Business is never really bad for this agency," Berman said. "Even when the price of gasoline and airfare goes up, people still find the money to go away."
