Anyone planning a trip for 2026 knows this well: the airfare prices this year seem to follow the logic of a seesaw, with increases and declines that come month after month and that change depending on the country you depart from.
The latest data released by Eurostat depict a two-speed Europe, where most member states contend with air travel costs that are getting increasingly higher, while the Italy represents an exception, with tickets that continue to cost less than a year ago.
Flights More Expensive Almost Everywhere
The overall picture drawn by Eurostat for 2026 is far from linear. After a start-of-year decline, prices picked up again between February and March, only to fall once more in April. Yet May was the most volatile month, with a price surge that exceeded 8% compared with the same period in 2025, followed by a calmer June, though still in positive territory.
What weighs most heavily are the international routes: long-haul flights showed much more pronounced fluctuations than domestic connections, a sign that demand for trips to far-away destinations remains particularly sensitive to external factors.
The differences from one country to another tell stories that are almost opposite. Belgium experienced the steepest increases, with rises at Easter surpassing 40% and staying high in the following months. In the same vein, though with less extreme numbers, Austria and Greece are both with double-digit gains by June.
At the opposite end is Slovakia, where tickets have literally collapsed, with declines edging close to 50% in spring. A similar pattern, albeit more muted, is seen in Hungary and Poland, where prices fell by about 13 percentage points.
The Italian Case
In this scenario, in Italy, within the same three months examined by Eurostat, flight prices consistently moved downward. In April the drop approached 13%, in May it stood just above 3%, while in June it rose again to exceed 10%. These figures place our country among the most affordable in Europe for buying a plane ticket during this period, in clear contrast to markets such as Belgium or Austria.
The reasons are not yet fully clear and are probably found in a mix of factors: the structure of domestic demand, the weight of low-cost carriers on national and international routes, and perhaps also a price-repositioning effect after the turbulence of previous years. What is certain is that, for those planning their next holidays, looking at the Italian market could prove the most convenient choice at the moment, in an Europe where the cost of a flight depends more and more on where you live than on where you want to go.
