Families and individuals traveling in the United States this year during the summer may face higher costs and longer wait times due to changes in foreign conflicts, inflation and national events. As the school year is coming to an end, everyone is starting to make summer plans. The most common plans during the summer usually involve traveling to a different state or even country.

One of the main traveling factors that will be affected is the price of flights due to inflation. Spirit Airlines, one of the more affordable options, has recently shut down since the company was no longer able to keep up with increasing oil prices.

 With the main source of budget friendly flights leaving, ticket prices may vary as the balance in the competition between flight companies has to readjust. Spirit Airlines forced other airline companies to bring their prices down to compete. “American Airlines designed its own stripped-down fare specifically to compete with ultra-low-cost carriers like Spirit,” stated Eduardo Vega in TravelPirates. 

According to TravelPirates, “…historical data shows that when ultra-low-cost carriers exit a market entirely, fares on those specific routes can jump over 70%.” 

However, the rise of the airfare ultimately depends on where you are traveling and the route that you decide to take. Some cities will experience more obvious changes than others will.

Any travelling plans that involve travelling by plane have already faced some difficulties with the government being shut down such as having no TSI agents at airports.The wait times that people have been dealing with from being short staffed has been more than four hours, though it may vary depending on the status of the airport and government.

Throughout the summer there may be some travel challenges experienced due to the FIFA World Cup starting in June. According to FIFA, the three hosting countries consist of the United States, Canada and Mexico. With the World Cup approaching, many who have not had the opportunity to attend any games before or are big fans in general will be traveling to these places where the games will be held. 

As more people travel in hopes of attending these soccer games, the amount of traffic that occurs will increase significantly. About 6.5 million fans are expected to travel to attend these games. Forbes mentioned, “One-third of World Cup matches will be played on weekdays, putting millions of unfamiliar fans in competition with daily commuters for roadway and public transit space.”

People who live in these cities along with people who want to travel there for other purposes will come face to face with a more heavily populated area. Even though not everyone will be traveling for the purpose of seeing these games, any sort of tourist attractions in cities where games will take place will be packed. Hotels are expected to be part of the places that get packed; however, there have been no changes noticed by hotel owners so far.

Some of the differences in the ways that things are being done when traveling this summer can lead back to the current conflict between the United States and Iran.

The conflict that the United States and Iran currently have has already brought clear changes such as higher gas prices. Gas prices have gone up 50% in the United States being at an average of about $4.50 per gallon. An increase in oil prices doesn’t just mean that only people who want to travel by airplanes will be affected in the amount of money that is spent traveling but also those who just want to go on road trips. 

Road trips seem like the better option in terms of saving money or maybe saving time but the changes that can be seen with road trips are almost the same as the ones seen in traveling by plane. Although there are no ticket prices, the amount of money spent on gas, depending on the location, will still be of higher cost along with the increase in traffic. 

Transportation in general is something that needs to be considered when making the choice to travel anywhere with everything that is going on. Traveling while staying inside the country shouldn’t result in any major changes other than the increase in traveling expenses and wait times. Regardless of how irrelevant these changes may seem, it is important to keep in mind that they can still affect summer plans.