‘It’s outrageous’: KIRO hosts say rising airfares are putting family visits out of reach

Rising airfares are making family visits harder to afford, KIRO fill-in hosts Angela Poe Russell and Greg Tomlin argued, describing the tension between holiday travel costs and spending time with aging relatives.

On “The John Curley Show,” Greg explained that his family of five tries to visit his brother in Nevada once a year. Recently, checking ticket prices has brought those plans to a quick halt.

“It’s outrageous, and I don’t even spend more than two minutes fantasizing about making the trip anymore,” Greg said.

Angela described a similar dilemma: Her mother can’t travel as much, but flying the family to see her for Christmas would mean paying roughly $800 per ticket to Pensacola, Florida.

The destination made the price particularly difficult to swallow.

“Like this isn’t Maui,” Angela said.

Empty seats prompt questions about affordability

Angela’s concerns began during a recent East Coast trip, when she encountered something she hadn’t seen much of in years: rows of empty airplane seats.

She recalled having no one sitting next to her on either flight, including the return trip from Philadelphia to Seattle. Rather than simply enjoying the extra space, she began wondering what it meant.

“For so many years I’ve been used to booked flights where they’re actually offering people vouchers if they’ll take another flight,” Angela said.

Greg saw an immediate upside to the unexpected room.

“Isn’t it the greatest feeling in the world when you get onto the airplane, and you just see an empty row of seats, and you think I can go full spread eagle on this row?” Greg asked.

Angela acknowledged enjoying the space, but the experience also sent her researching airfare prices and thinking about the economy.

She questioned whether higher prices could make flying feel like an option primarily for wealthier travelers again, rather than something broadly accessible to families.

Airlines’ priorities draw scrutiny

Angela discussed a CNBC report in which an American Airlines executive said it prioritizes higher fares over filling every seat.

Greg questioned whether that explanation was an attempt to put a positive spin on emptier planes. Angela shared that skepticism, while also questioning what airlines’ emphasis on premium travel would mean for people buying ordinary coach tickets.

KIRO producer Joe Wallace argued that empty seats could signal that travelers had reached their financial limit.

“The fact that you see so many empty seats, that’s alarming because that just means people aren’t able to deal with, and they’re unwilling to,” Joe said.

Angela contrasted that concern with a listener who texted that they were still flying first class. She viewed the difference as part of a broader divide between people who can absorb higher costs and those who cannot.

“It just kind of mirrors what we see happening in the country, like these two Americas, where you have people that are doing great and then people that are struggling,” Angela said.

The cost of keeping family close

For Greg, traveling to Nevada is about maintaining relationships that are difficult to sustain entirely through a screen.

“We want to keep face-to-face relationships with family alive, right?” Greg said. “It’s just a lot harder to do that over screens, and so we try to prioritize our money and go visit them once a year.”

He argued that higher fuel costs make those trips harder to justify, especially when you multiply the price by five passengers. He also linked some of the pressure on household budgets to the administration’s policy decisions.

Angela returned to the emotional stakes of her own holiday plans. Her mother usually visits Washington because more relatives live here, but that arrangement has become more difficult.

“And so the idea of leaving her alone at Christmas, like, no, yeah,” Angela said.

She asked listeners how they balance a trip they cannot comfortably afford against the prospect of leaving someone close to them alone during the holidays.

“You can’t get that time back,” Angela said. “Relatives are getting older.”

Watch the full discussion in the video above.

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