The festive flights rip-off: How airways are mountain climbing their fares by as much as 700 PER CENT

The weather outside may be frightful. But anyone looking to jet off to warmer climes for Christmas or New Year may be in for a shock – with flights over the festive period costing up to 700 per cent more.

Research by the Daily Mail found skyrocketing fares for popular winter sun destinations and big cities.

While families now expect to pay more for travelling during school holidays, the scale of the hike may be too much for many.

Flights to New York with British Airways from London leaving today are more than double the price of what they cost in April.

And anyone wanting to go to Barbados for Christmas will also find themselves paying 85 per cent more than at other times of the year.

Earlier this year, Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary warned of soaring Christmas prices for flights to Dublin – blaming a government flight cap. He warned that tickets could cost passengers up to £421.

Ryanair claims that the airline, alongside other carriers that serve Dublin, applied for 270,000 extra slots for flights this Christmas, but was refused by the Irish Aviation Authority (IAA).

Currently, the cheapest tickets from London Gatwick to Dublin today, returning a week later, are £189 – compared to just £54 in February. But flying from Heathrow to Dublin with British Airways on the same dates is a staggering £291 – a ticket that will cost just £74 two months later. It is a similar picture for anyone wanting to get away for the New Year, with flights to Edinburgh from Bristol going up by 179 per cent and from London to Lisbon by 387 per cent.

Popular destinations such as Dublin and Tenerife have seen increases of more than 200 percent while flights to Berlin have increased by more than 700 per cent

Flights from London to Berlin have skyrocketed by more than 700 per cent over the festive period 

Most shockingly, tickets from London to Berlin with Ryanair on Monday, December 30, returning on Thursday, January 2, were this week £277.74 per person compared to £34 at other times – an astonishing 717 per cent increase.

But anyone willing to fly on New Year’s Eve itself could save an average of 28 per cent on long-haul airline fares, compared with flying on any other dates over the Christmas break, according to separate research from travel search engine Kayak.

For example, a non-stop return flight to Las Vegas with hand luggage only on December 31, returning on January 7 with Norse Airlines, came to £433 – which is £560 cheaper than flying out on December 28.

Rory Boland, editor of Which? Travel, said: ‘At peak times travellers can expect to see flight prices rise substantially, and that’s certainly the case over the Christmas period. The closer you edge to departure, prices are only likely to soar – so booking well in advance is the best way to ensure a more reasonable price.’

He added: ‘Dates such as Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve are sometimes among the cheapest options over the festive period as they’re less popular times to fly, but flight comparison sites will be able to give you the best indication of the cheapest options for your route – just set up price alerts to see when the price drops.’ The International Air Transport Association declined to comment.

At the weekend, Heathrow said it expected to serve record numbers of passengers on Christmas Day, with figures up 21 per cent on the same time last year. Gatwick expected last Saturday to be the busiest festive travel day.