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Australian travellers battered by rising grocery bills, coffee prices and everyday household costs have at least one reason to look skyward with a little less suspicion: international economy airfares are cheaper than they were three years ago.

Flight Centre Corporate’s 2026 Airfare Inflation Index shows average international economy fares booked through its FCM Travel and Corporate Traveller businesses fell 7 per cent between January–June 2023 and the same period in 2026, dropping from $989 to $915 one way from Australia.

That result lands against a much less cheerful cost-of-living backdrop. Flight Centre Corporate’s comparison puts cumulative inflation across the selected period at about 11 per cent. International business class fares rose 4 per cent, from $4,553 to $4,747, while domestic economy fares increased 10 per cent, from $394 to $434.

In other words, the price of flying has not behaved quite like the price of breakfast.

The index says apples rose 35 per cent, takeaway coffee 25 per cent, bread 18 per cent and a two-litre carton of milk 14 per cent over the comparison period. Unleaded petrol was up 5 per cent.

For corporate travel managers, travel advisors, and anyone trying to make sense of modern airfares, the figures are noteworthy. Air travel remains expensive in absolute terms, but the longer-term movement is more restrained than many passengers may assume.

FCM Travel and Corporate Traveller Global COO Melissa Elf said comparing 2026 with 2023 produced a clearer picture of pricing after the pandemic-era distortions had faded.

Melissa Elf, Global COO for FCM Travel and Corporate Traveller

“By comparing the first half of 2026 with the first half of 2023, we’re able to get a much clearer picture of how airfare pricing has moved in a post-COVID environment,” Ms Elf said.

The point matters because 2023 was the first full year in which international travel was operating on something approaching normal post-border-reopening settings. It therefore provides a more useful benchmark than the wildly disrupted pandemic years, when schedules, capacity and demand were anything but normal.

Fuel costs head sharply higher

The contrast becomes sharper when airline costs are considered.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission reported in June that jet fuel prices were more than 40 per cent higher in early June 2026 than in mid-February, increasing cost pressures across the aviation sector. By late August, the ACCC said jet fuel remained nearly 50 per cent above February levels.

That is hardly a minor expense for an industry built around moving large metal tubes through the air at several hundred kilometres an hour.

“Airlines have continued to operate in a high-cost environment, particularly when it comes to fuel,” Ms Elf said.

Yet airlines cannot simply pass every cost increase directly to passengers. Competition, available seat capacity, route economics and customer demand all influence the final fare. Carriers may lift prices when operating costs surge, but they also discount when seats need filling.

That commercial reality helps explain why airfare movements can look very different from supermarket inflation.

Ms Elf said the market had become more mature since travel normalised, with demand, competition, airline capacity and operating costs exerting a more balanced influence on pricing.

The ACCC’s own domestic airline monitoring supports part of that picture. It found Australian airlines responded to elevated fuel costs during 2026 by adjusting capacity, suspending or reducing some services and increasing some fares. At the same time, targeted sales remained an important tool for stimulating demand.

Volatility has not vanished

For businesses, the lesson is not that airfare volatility has disappeared. It plainly has not.

Geopolitical shocks, fuel-price spikes, constrained capacity, major events and peak travel periods can still push fares sharply higher. Popular domestic routes can also behave very differently from international markets, particularly where competition is limited.

But the broader trend provides a useful antidote to the assumption that every airfare has simply marched upwards with inflation.

“For businesses, travel budgeting is becoming less about managing extreme volatility and more about understanding market dynamics,” Ms Elf said.

That means timing matters. Travellers who book earlier, avoid peak periods where possible and use historical fare data can still create meaningful savings. Corporate travel programs with visibility over demand and booking patterns are particularly well placed to manage that process.

There is also an important caveat in the numbers. Flight Centre Corporate’s index reflects average fares booked through FCM Travel and Corporate Traveller. It is not a complete measure of every fare sold by every airline in Australia, nor does it mean every traveller will find cheaper tickets on every route.

Nevertheless, the results offer a significant snapshot of business-travel pricing.

They also offer an intriguing contrast with everyday inflation. A coffee may disappear in ten minutes and an apple considerably faster, yet both have risen more sharply in price than an international economy airfare in the period examined.

Perhaps aviation deserves one small round of applause before the next baggage fee appears.

For travel buyers and advisors, however, the practical message is less whimsical. International economy fares have proved comparatively resilient despite higher airline costs, while domestic pricing has risen at roughly the same pace as broader inflation.

That makes disciplined booking, route comparison and forward planning as important as ever.

And in an economy where almost everything seems determined to cost more, finding something that costs less than it did three years ago is becoming a story in itself.