Flight costs now!!!!

I don't wish to be rude or sarcastic but have you been listening or watching the news? There are staff shortages in all areas of the aviation industry. Unfortunalety demand for flights outweighs supply. 

...and if you do book a flight, you're not guaranteed it will actually fly. If you're lucky and it does get you to your destination, you're not guaranteed you'll get your flight back. Its absolutely outrageous 

I've just booked Xmas return flights to Bournemouth, €400 for 2 with 2 x luggage each, priority and reserved seats. I left it a bit late and I'm sure if I had looked when the flights were first released I would have got them cheaper.
With British Airways, TUI and Easyjet cancelling flights left, right and centre it is going to put the prices up as less availability. Basic economics but I'm still fairly ok with the price considering it is Xmas. Someone has to pay for all the money these airlines have to pay back to customers!
Fingers crossed we don't get cancelled now.

Stag and hen doo season. Always an expensive time to fly 

Supply and demand, the core base for any free market economy.

Nothing much is likely to change until the labour crisis is resolved and the only way for that to happen is the return of foreign workers so don't hold your breath.

Maybe some of the 90,000 civil servants Rees Mogg plans to sack will fancy a new career in the industry?

And of course there is the cost of fuel.

Just to put prices into perspective, what are you being quoted? and to which airport?

I’ve just flown from Alicante to Birmingham I paid €72 it went to €94 then come back down to €43.

The queue were so long they were over 10ft long and had to wait over 90 seconds, at Birmingham straight out.

And maybe perhaps, another answer to your question:

https://www.thesun.co.uk/travel/18766701/jet2-boss-airport-lazy-brits/?utm_campaign=native_share&utm_source=sharebar_native&utm_medium=sharebar_native 

Late booking always pushes the prices up.  Probably recouping the costs of when they couldn't fly as well.