With 2020 in full swing, travellers around the world will be starting to think about making holiday plans for the year ahead – whether it be a city break, educational trip or beach holiday. It’s a known fact that the earlier a traveller books a flight, the more likely they are to get a better deal and save money. But despite knowing this, the average spend on flights varies significantly in each nation.

Interested in holiday expenditure, TheMoneyPig.com identified 14 different nationalities from around the world to work out how the average spend on flights per person based on their top five travel destinations.*

The nationalities included in the research are:

American, Australian, Chinese, Saudi Arabian, Canadian, Pakistani, South African, Indian, Qatari, Russian, Emirati, French, British and Irish.

How does the average spend on flights differ from country-to-country?

The Money Pig found that Americans’ average spend on flights is the highest, at an astonishing £649/€780/$846.

Thereafter, Australians splash an average of £569/€684/$742 on airplane tickets when going to a desired holiday destination. Additionally, Australians also clock up the most air miles when compared to the 13 other nationalities, at an average of 15,348.

In third place, the Chinese spend an average of £528/€634/$688 on flights when travelling abroad, and on average accumulate 11,584 air miles – 3,764 less than Australian travellers. 

South African travellers also rack up a lot of air miles, clocking in at 9,428 and taking the third spot. Residents of South Africa spend an average of £430/€517/$560 when purchasing flight tickets.

On the other end, the Irish have the lowest average spend on flights, at a mere average of £82/€99/$107. Slightly above the Irish are the British, who typically pay an average of just £87/€105/$113 for plane tickets. Similarly, Brits generate 1,069 air miles when flying by a plane, compared to 1,183 for the Irish.

When evaluating the spending habits of flights for the nationality that pays the most and least, TheMoneyPig identified that Americans on average pay seven times more for airplane tickets than the Irish. Potentially, also making Americans overall average holiday cost per person seven times more than those living in Ireland.

If you do happen to have a fear of flying you can always consider alternative transport options such as booking a train ticket.

* Methodology

1) The top five travel destinations for 14 different nationalities were identified using a report from British property specialists Knight Frank.

2) Using Skyscanner, we found out how much it would cost each nationality to fly from their home capital city to each capital city in their top five travel destinations between Monday 6th April – Sunday 12th April 2020 (Easter 2020).

3) For each travel destination we sought to use the cheapest direct flight return option. Where there were no direct flights available, the cheapest connecting flight return was used.

4) Once the flight prices for each of the five travel destinations were identified for a given nationality – the results for all five were added together and divided by five to arrive at an average spend on flights per person figure.

5) We then used Web Flyer mileage calculator to calculate the air miles between the home capital city to the travelling capital city and back for each of the five travel destinations for a given nationality – the results for all five were then added together and divided by five to arrive at an average air miles per person figure.