Christmas flights 2026: what they really cost and what actually saves money

In short

• Christmas Day 2026 is a Friday. In the UK the bank holidays are Friday 25 and Monday 28 December (Boxing Day falls on a Saturday), then Friday 1 January (in Scotland also Monday 4 January). In Ireland the public holidays are Christmas Day and St Stephen's Day, Saturday 26. Most schools in England and Wales break up on Friday 18 December.
• On the same 158 routes across Europe, the Christmas median is €106.40 return, against €49.98 in early December and €59.58 in mid-January. Route by route, the median rise is 1.66 times, and on almost 4 routes in 10 the price doubles.
• The day matters less than people think: on the same route, flying out on any day between 19 and 24 December moves the price by only a few per cent. The useful exception is coming back on 31 December, at the median 18% below the route's usual Christmas fare.
• What really moves the price is the route: on the same days a return trip costs anywhere from under €40 to well over €150, depending on where you go.
• Flying home costs most: routes into Italy rise 2.09 times, into Poland 1.78 times, into the UK 1.41 times.

The numbers come from fares FlyDown read directly from the airlines between late September and 8 October 2026: return, per person, small cabin bag only, the latest reading of each flight. We always compare the same routes across periods, so the result does not depend on which cities happen to appear. Most of these routes start in continental Europe: we do not yet read enough Christmas departures from UK and Irish airports to give UK-only figures, and we say so where it matters.

What Christmas really costs

"Everything doubles at Christmas" is only half true. We took the routes where we had fares in all three periods and worked out the median: the price in the middle, with half the flights cheaper and half dearer.

Route by route the median rise is 1.66 times, and it depends heavily on where you are going. The rule that comes out of the numbers is simple: the more a route is used by people going home to family, the more it rises. Holiday routes to Spain barely move.

Albania and Luxembourg rise a lot too (×3.7 and ×2.2), but on only a handful of routes: we mention them for completeness.

The day you fly matters less than you think

You will read about huge gaps between one day and the next, and our own raw numbers show them too: the median of all flights leaving on Saturday 19 December was about €140, on Monday 21 about €100. But those are averages of different routes: on some days more long, expensive flights are on sale. To see how much the day itself weighs, we compared the same route, with the same airline, across the different days:

The result is less dramatic, but more useful: at Christmas the day moves the price by only a few per cent, because the holiday routes are full all week. The one day that clearly saves money in our data is flying back on 31 December, when hardly anyone wants to travel. Saturday 19, the first Saturday of the school holidays in England, and Wednesday 23, the last working day before Christmas, are the dearest days to leave, but only by about 6%.

These comparisons rest on the few dozen routes that had fares on several days (only 12 on the 19th and 8 on the 30th), almost all of them in continental Europe: on routes to and from the UK and Ireland we had too few to measure separately. Take them as a trend, not as a rule for every flight.

One thing to check before you plan around 25 December: in our data Ryanair has no flights at all on Christmas Day, while Wizz Air and a few others do fly. In the UK most trains do not run that day either.

When to book: what our data shows, and what it does not

We followed 99 Christmas flights from the first time we saw them until today. Over about three weeks the median change is zero: 18% went up by more than 10%, 22% went down by more than 10%. In other words, in early October Christmas fares are not yet rising across the board, and if you have not booked, you have not missed the boat.

What our data cannot tell you yet, because we only started collecting these fares in September, is how prices move in the final weeks. How low-cost fares work is not in doubt, though: each flight has a few seats at the lowest fare, then the next bracket opens, and a bracket that has sold out does not come back. On the busy holiday routes the cheap seats run out in the last three or four weeks. Last-minute bargains exist, but on routes nobody uses at Christmas.

In practice: fix your dates now (if you can, avoid flying out on the 23rd and consider coming back on the 31st), set a realistic maximum price using the tables in this guide, and buy when the flight drops below it. Waiting until December never makes sense if you have to get home.

Flying home from the UK: which direction you pay for

Millions of people in the UK and Ireland have family in Poland, Italy, Portugal, Spain or Romania, and Christmas is when they fly. Our data shows that the direction of the trip changes the bill:

Routes into the UK vary a lot. From Lisbon to Manchester the same return trip went from €32.98 in early December to €93.33 at Christmas, and Lisbon to Dublin and Edinburgh nearly tripled too; Milan to London barely moved. If your family is abroad, compare both ways: sometimes it is cheaper for them to come to you.

Measured on the same copy of our data on 8 October 2026, Christmas (out 18–24 December, back 26 December – 7 January) against 1–13 December, cheapest fare per route. We do not yet have enough Christmas departures from UK airports to measure the UK-to-abroad direction.

Where you can fly cheaply at Christmas

The lowest fares we found for flying out between 18 and 24 December and back after Christmas, on international routes across Europe. They are real readings, but they may already have changed: they show what is possible, they are not a promise.

Notice how many of these trips end on 26 December: they are mostly short trips of a few days, on routes that are not overrun at Christmas. It is the route, more than the day, that sets the price.

Five moves that actually save money

• Choose the route first, then the day. On the same route the days move the price by a few per cent; changing airport or the direction of travel moves it by tens of euros. If you can, come back on the 31st: in our data it cost 18% less than usual.
• If the family can come to you, let them. On the same pairs of cities, the "going home" direction rises more. Run the numbers both ways before deciding who travels.
• Check nearby airports, at both ends. London alone has six. Since the route is what sets the price, an airport an hour away, at either end, can have very different fares from the main one: look at them all before you buy.
• Fly out with one airline and back with another. Low-cost airlines sell each leg on its own: combining the 21st with one and the 26th with the other is normal, and FlyDown does it for you when it is cheaper.
• Count the presents. At Christmas you travel heavy. A hold bag added at the last minute, per leg, can cost more than the ticket: deciding at the time of booking costs far less than at the airport (see low-cost cabin baggage).

The easy way: get an alert

Doing this by hand at Christmas is thankless: the dates are almost fixed, prices move in brackets, and the cheap seat that was there last night is gone by morning. FlyDown checks Ryanair, Wizz Air, easyJet, Vueling, Volotea, Transavia, Sky Express, Air Transat and Neos every few hours, day and night, and writes to you only when the flight for your dates drops below the price you chose, with the price history so you can tell whether it is genuinely a good fare.