The cheapest places to fly to this summer – and the most expensive
The school summer holidays are just 11 weeks away. But if you haven’t booked your flights yet, fear not – there are still some excellent value options available during the peak months of July and August.
We looked at the 30 most in-demand European summer holiday destinations for British holidaymakers. We also looked at a selection of 10 other popular cities and found the cheapest and most expensive prices for flights departing on Saturday, July 27 and on Saturday, August 24, both for a week.
Despite the school holidays being just around the corner, you can still find return flights on the most popular dates of the year for less than £100, if you know where to look. We also identified the month and time of day for the cheapest flights and the airlines and airports that serve up the best-value options for the summer of 2024.
We used the flight search website Skyscanner for this study. Prices are dynamic and can go up and down, so bear in mind that while the below is an accurate snapshot of prices that were listed at around midday on May 9, 2024, prices may have changed when you search for them.
The cheapest flights? Look to the Balearics
The most cost-effective holiday destination for a July 27 departure, returning a week later, is Majorca (£89, flying with Ryanair from Leeds Bradford). Barcelona (£92), Ibiza (£99), Valencia (£102) and Malta (£104) also come with surprisingly low prices. The cheapest flights in late August are to Menorca (£74, with easyJet from Belfast International), plus Valencia (£84), Ibiza (£94), Majorca (£119) and Malta (£136). So anyone looking for an affordable beach getaway this summer should look first to Spain, and particularly the Balearic Islands, for the best bargains. For a city break, Venice (£70 in August) and Copenhagen (£66 in July) are among the cheaper options.
At the more expensive end of the scale, we found steeper prices for trips to Greece. The cheapest return flights to Crete are £417 (July 27) and £343 (August 24), while flights to Zakynthos (£327/£346) and Kos (£291/£396) are also high. This is in part because flight times are generally one or two hours longer than those to Spain; although the best flights to Bodrum, even further away than Greece, are still around £100 cheaper on average than the most inexpensive flights to the main Greek islands. It is likely that high demand and low availability is what’s driving up prices.
Ryanair is the cheapest of the bunch
Of the 80 cheapest flights to 40 destinations surveyed across July and August, almost half (37) were with Ryanair. EasyJet offered 27 of those flights, with Wizz and Jet2.com on five apiece. Not one of the 80 cheapest fares we found was with British Airways.
This doesn’t mean that low-cost airlines always offer affordable options, however. Some 25 of the most expensive available flights were listed by easyJet and 20 were with Jet2.com – more than BA, which had 14. Only Ryanair, with just four of the 80 most expensive flights and the greatest quantity of cheapest flights arguably lives up to the low-cost moniker. We also found that some of the most exceptionally expensive flights were with Tui, including a £1,012 flight to Mallorca in August from Bournemouth and a £956 flight to Fuerteventura from Birmingham in July.
The best-value airport (and it isn’t Luton)
Edinburgh (16 out of 80) and Belfast International (12) had the greatest share of cheapest flights. Of the English airports, Gatwick came up 10 times, whereas Heathrow didn’t have a single cheapest offering across the routes we surveyed. Luton and Stansted came up four and seven times, respectively.
However, Gatwick also had the greatest number of most expensive flights (20) followed by Birmingham and Manchester, both with 10. Teesside, Liverpool and Luton only served up on one occasion each.
The cheapest month and time of day to fly
While package holidays are traditionally cheaper towards the end of the summer holidays – with families keen to jet off as early as possible – our research found that slightly cheaper flight deals can be found in July. On average, the most affordable flights leaving on July 27 to our 40 destinations cost £224; however, the cheapest flights departing on August 24 were on average £243. Similarly, the most expensive flights in August (averaging £535) were higher than those in July (£483).
Across our study, we found that the cheapest flights tend to be later in the day. The average departure time of the cheapest flights was 6.07 pm, while the average most expensive flight was at 12.54 pm. This is likely because later flights mean later arrival times, sometimes after dark, which is unappealing – it also means losing almost a full day of holiday time, so demand is naturally higher for earlier departures. Earlier flights are also less likely to be subject to knock-on delays.
Some out-of-the-box destinations
If you are willing to shop around for an alternative destination this summer, you could turn to Zadar in Croatia, where we found flights departing on July 27 for £99 with Ryanair from Leeds Bradford. Other cheap alternatives include flights to Perpignan (£128), Girona (£112), Agadir (£112), Santander (£122), plus options in northern Europe including Aalborg in Denmark for £58, and Oslo for £80. Take a look on Skyscanner.net, searching for “Everywhere” as the destination, and you may well find some other good options yourself.
