Waiting in Madrid: What 1990s Travel Can Teach Us About the Coming Airfare Crisis

From $9-an-hour pub jobs to $240 fuel surcharges, we are exiting the golden age of frictionless travel. As the conflict in the Gulf reconfigures the map, I’m looking back at 1998 to see our future

Last century, travel was different.

Photo by Alex Vasey on Unsplash

I want to share with you how it once was - because with the events of the recent weeks in Iran and the gulf, we may be going back there. And by there - I mean really expensive flights and a greater degree of friction getting to Europe from Australia.

I first travelled overseas in 1998. In order to afford the ticket and my expenses I had to take almost a year off and work 3 or 4 shitty jobs, moving from a morning sandwich bar shift, to an afternoon hand couriering documents around offices in the city, to evenings ushering at the Arts Centre. On the weekends, I sold pies and beer at the MCG. It was fine. It’s what all my friends were doing to pay for their overseas trips - and the grind was worth it for the big trip at the end.

In the late 90s, for many people overseas travel was not as common as it is today.

It was a big deal when a kid in my primary school went on a trip to Canada. They had to do a presentation on it, it was so exotic.

In 1998, the cheapest ticket I could find to Europe was a Garuda flight from Melbourne via Bali to Amsterdam. It cost a bit over $1700 and in inflationary terms the price hasn’t moved much - in fact it’s cheaper. I paid $1500 return in 2025, meaning the “real” price of long haul air flight had actually dropped by about 58.3%.

Because the flight was so expensive in 1998 and I was working so hard to pay for it - it made sense to go for a long time. I planned to go for around a year. Half this time would be spent working for the equivalent of $9 an hour at a pub in Dublin.

Along the way I would meet up with college friends, but as no one had phones and internet cafes were relatively new, I had just to turn up at a random place in say, a bar Madrid that had been prearranged 6 months before, and hope they turn up (they did, hours late).

I had an amazing trip, and spent all my money, to the extent that when I got on the plane to return home, I had to borrow money from the stranger I was sitting next to on the plane to pay for a hotel during the layover (hello, Matthew Flood if you are reading).

That trip was special for a number of reasons. But one thing that strikes me about it now - is that you can’t see around the corners. Waiting for my friends at that bar in Madrid, for hours and hours, I could not imagine a situation where one day, not far into the future, I would not have to wait for anyone at all. That I could track and message my friends at all times.

And that flights themselves would be cheaper, there would be an increase in budget airlines and the barriers to travel would drop significantly.

In those intervening years between 1998 and say - 2004, technology and globalisation would meet in a strange conflagration that suddenly there would be cheap and plentiful long haul flights, and the ability to never be out of touch with anyone, ever.

With the boom in budget airlines, buy now pay later schemes and easy credit, and social media Euro summers became normalised.

People didn’t have to justify a trip by going away for a year. They could fly across the world for a week or two.

And technology quantum leaps would mean you no longer just wait somewhere hoping your friends will turn up. You no longer have to tackle a European city without a map, and have to ask strangers for directions. You no longer have to mime a chicken sandwich (buk-buk, elbows flapping) or even learn a language, because there’s an app for that now.

The change is so profound, yet it just happened quietly.

So what does all of this have to do with the Iran War?

Things can change quickly again. Jet fuel costs are surging, and supply is not guaranteed due to the ongoing uncertainty of the conflict.

Global jet fuel prices have jumped from a pre-war average of $85–$90 per barrel to between $150 and $200. In some major hubs like Singapore, prices peaked at over $240 in early March.

The war has forced a massive reconfiguration of global flight paths with the airspace over Iran and several neighbouring countries (including the UAE, Qatar, and Iraq) largely closed or restricted. This means airlines must fly longer, circuitous routes between Europe, Asia, and Africa - also increasing prices. These longer routes require significantly more fuel and additional crew hours, costs that are being passed directly to consumers.

There’s also hub disruption with the temporary suspension of operations at major transit hubs like Dubai, Doha, and Abu Dhabi which has removed millions of seats from the market, creating a supply-demand imbalance that naturally pushes prices up.

Many carriers have already adjusted their pricing models to stay solvent. Qantas and Virgin Australia have both flagged or implemented fare increases of 5% to 10%, with frequent reviews expected.

And international carriers such as Cathay Pacific, Air France-KLM, and AirAsia have either raised base fares or reintroduced significant fuel surcharges.

Budget airlines and those that do not “hedge” (lock in) fuel prices in advance are the most vulnerable, meaning the cheapest “low-cost” seats are disappearing from the market first.

All this makes travel more unaffordable.

We may return to the days where you had to save up for ages to afford to fly to Europe, or only the rich can afford a Euro summer.

I saw a post on x.com last week - a picture of posh boy Freddie - played by Phillip Seymour Hoffman in Talented Mr Ripley and it said Aristo euro summer - empty cattle class.

Also on X - “Gen Alpha will talk about millennials flying for vacations the same way that millennials talk about boomers buying cheap homes.”

It’s not necessarily a bad thing to travel less. That first trip was the most memorable because I had to work hard for it, and was determined to savour every day of my time away.