November Airline Market Update

Hey there, Travelers!

We’re all pretty busy putting away Halloween decorations and preparing for Black Friday, so we’ll keep this one short and sweet.

We spent all of October trick-or-treating for deals and came back with our buckets full of terrific fares. Sure, there might have been a few apples and baggies of candy corn in there, but we found a bunch of full-sized chocolate bars too - like these fantastic short-haul flights to the Caribbean in the $270s-$490s RT, Puerto Rico for under $300 RT, and around the US in the $90s-$190s RT.

In other news, anyone dreaming of a trip to Sicily absolutely hit the jackpot last month. We found a ton of flights to everyone’s favorite Italian island, taking off from:

• Chicago and Washington in the $680s-$690s RT
• Phoenix and Tampa in the $730s-$790s RT
• A few more cities in the $630s-$740s RT
• And pretty much everywhere else, too

Finally, we rounded out our haul with some other especially tasty fares, including:

• A rare Corsica sighting in the $630s RT
• Some late summer fares to the world’s tallest waterfall
• The cheapest flights from Chicago to Rio we’ve ever seen
• And some sweet biz class fares to Albania

But enough about the past… Let’s look to the future and address the sales-event-sized elephant in the room.

Black Friday

A specter is haunting the flight world this month - the specter of Black Friday.

You might find yourself feeling a little overwhelmed as that beast of a sale, its hour come ‘round at last, slouches towards the market to be born. After all, how are you supposed to find the best fares when every airline is offering discounts at the same time? It’s a lot to sift through.

Luckily, we’ve got you covered. We’ll be combing through every sale from every carrier, separating the wheat from the chaff and sending the best fares straight to you. So all you really have to do is sit back and wait!

But if you’d rather do a little digging of your own, or you’re just curious about our predictions, here are a few airlines we’re expecting big things from this year:

• Southwest - As more and more domestic carriers downgrade their BF sales, Southwest just keeps rolling with great deals year after year. They’ve been dropping big 30%-50% discounts on Cyber Monday lately, usually with a bunch of domestic flights for under $100 RT.
  
  
• Frontier - Look, no one likes flying with Frontier. But they’re easily the biggest fish in the domestic budget airline pond these days, and they usually put out some fantastic Black Friday deals. If you want to buy cheap discounted flights around the US, check with Southwest. If you want to buy really cheap discounted flights, try Frontier.
  
  
• Turkish Airlines - Did Turkish skip Black Friday three years in a row? Yes. But they came roaring back last year with a killer sale on flights all over Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, so we’ve got our hopes up for 2026. They also have one of the most unique route networks out there, so if you’re looking for cheap fares to Sri Lanka or Uzbekistan, Turkish Airlines should be your first stop.

• Avianca - Latin America’s top low-cost carrier offered some great Black Friday discounts in 2025, and earlier this year they added free carry-ons to their international basic economy class. For flights down South America way, especially around their hub in Colombia, Avianca should offer some pretty terrific value this BF.
  
  
• Icelandair - These guys are one of the only European airlines that haven’t sent their prices to the moon since the war in Iran started. Add in a pretty solid Black Friday in 2025 (all over Europe for under $600 RT), and you’ve got a recipe for some budget-friendly transatlantic travel.
  
  
• Other airlines - Keep an eye out for great sales from Alaska, Copa, Cathay Pacific, and TAP Air Portugal as well. And if you want the full picture, you can always check out our handy Black Friday guide, updated for 2026.

Flight Nerd’s Corner

For those of you who aren’t weird airline nerds like us, here’s some news you may have missed:

• Alaska Airlines now has six wide-body 787 Dreamliners, with 11 more on the way. They’ve been going hog wild on their long-haul network lately, and it’s all thanks to those massive 300-seat beauties. P.S. You didn’t hear it from us, but we hear Alaska’s next expansion is a 14-hour non-stop route between Seattle and Hong Kong…
  
  
• JetBlue is launching some new adults-only flights! And sure, they only run from JFK to FLL, and sure, you can only get on the no-screaming-babies-allowed plane if you’re taking a Virgin Voyages cruise after. But we think it’s a great idea and are officially calling on JetBlue to expand the program ASAP - assuming they make it over this bump in the road, of course.
  
  
• The stratification of airline fares continues as United is adding a new, slightly cheaper first-class option. If you really want to be in that first-class cabin but don’t mind losing free seat selection and sticking to a single checked bag, then the new “United First Base” class is for you.