As winter approaches, I think many of us would like a cheap jaunt somewhere. In November and December, during the peak days of the Celtic Tiger, this translated to a transatlantic consumer capitalism travel flow of Masai Mara migration levels.
Every year legions of highly strung – and even more highly leveraged – Irish shoppers rinsed Manhattan and Woodbury Common for every last drop of Calvin Klein Euphoria, every inch of Juicy Couture velour, every roomy Abercrombie & Fitch hoodie, every “free” gift at the Macy’s Estée Lauder counter, every discounted pair of Century 21 Tommy Hilfiger jocks, every cutesy-lopsided silver Tiffany heart and every piece of distressed denim to be had at Bloomingdale’s.
And then, after a weekend high on credit and clinked cosmos, memories snapped with a freshly purchased digital camera from B&H, the flow of migration reversed: the tired, huddled masses slouched on the green, green seats of an Aer Lingus jet, lulled to sleep by the faint crew call of “beer, wine, juice, water”. The Moët bottles clinked in the overhead lockers, The Da Vinci Code silently played on cabin screens and the occasional bruise throbbed in a tender spot after a spirited performance on the Rockefeller ice rink.
God be with the days.
In 2005, passengers from Ireland spent €25 million on pre-Christmas shopping trips abroad. And thanks to the word-of-mouth skills of these shoppers – removing red-dot sale labels from the pressies before they were stuffed into suitcases in Fitzpatrick’s – the Revenue Commissioners collected just over €42,000 in customs duty and tax.
That year, 253,000 people – 6 per cent of the population at the time – travelled from Ireland to New York. People from Ireland were the seventh largest visiting group to the city. In 2006, around 100,000 people travelled to the US in November and December alone. Continental Airlines increased capacity on its flights by 27 per cent to facilitate the crowds. That festive season, the euro was worth $1.30. It’s $1.15 today, but give it time.
Of course, Christmas shopping in New York meant a big outlay on flights and a hotel, but we could afford it – or thought we could.
But what would that cost now? In May, I wrote about the effective collapse in airfare prices from Dublin to the US. At that time, the cheapest airfare from Dublin to New York was technically €15 one way, €30 return. With taxes, charges, and carrier-imposed fees on top of that, the final price for the customer was €398.58, but the actual fare component was €30.
A flight from Dublin to JFK on Friday, November 7th, returning on Tuesday, November 11th, sounds tempting. It also sounds expensive. It’s over a weekend, for one. And, as established, it’s during what has for a long time been a busy Christmas shopping period. So how much is the airfare? At the time of writing, it’s fifty cent. Return, it’s €1.
Add on the taxes, charges, and carrier imposed fees and it comes to €330.46. The real price for the customer is therefore €331.46 – but Aer Lingus is selling that return flight for €1. The (then) rock-bottom €15 flight I wrote about in May now has a 97 per cent discount at 50 cent.
Last week, Aer Lingus announced the addition of a third daily flight from Dublin to New York JFK. New York is relevant because it’s the most visited state for people travelling from Ireland. About one-third of people travelling from Ireland to the United States are heading for New York, compared to say, Florida – about one-tenth of travellers. Clearly Aer Lingus has the passenger data to back up its strategy. But the US National Travel and Tourism Office also publishes detailed data on visitors.
The numbers are fluctuating. The numbers of non-US citizens travelling from Ireland to New York are up for last July (13,989) compared to July 2024 (10,866), but down for last month (12,562 compared to 13,721 in August 2024). The number of students travelling from Ireland to the US on student visas has plummeted.
Last May, there was a fall of a quarter in student visa travellers from Ireland compared to the same month in 2024. In June it was a 10 per cent drop. In July, that decrease was 28 per cent.
As passengers numbers rise and fall and prices drop, the reality is that travelling to the US has changed because that country is in a downward spiral. The idea of holidaying in a place where good people are grappling with what it means to live in an authoritarian context is less than appealing to many.
While most tourists breeze through pre-clearance, the stories about needing burner phones and scrubbing social media are not an inviting proposition – even if the reality on the ground is different from the headlines. Of course, their visitor numbers are down and the vibes are very much off.
It will be interesting to see, with such low fares on offer over winter, how November-December data compares to last year’s. Cheap airfares may entice more people to travel, but as the American skies darken further, what then?
