Comments on: Past prices on oil and airfares?

Question: Past prices on oil and airfares?

ricochet biscuit — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 15:17:10 -0800

Is there a resource anywhere that will give me either (a) historical data for the last year or two on the price of oil (b) similar data for airline tickets or (c) ideally, both?

In a perfect world, I would like something that would tell me that on March 3rd or September 6th this year, or December 8th last year, the price per barrel of oil was ____ and a good ticket price for air travel along certain major routes (JFK-Heathrow, say) was ______.

I have to write a brief analysis of travel patterns for the last year and while I know that oil is roughly half the price now it was this summer, I would like some citations to back this up. And ideally, I would like to match this to airlines' pricing. Any suggestions?

By: milkrate

milkrate — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 15:43:27 -0800

2 years of LAX to NYC, oil and refined products.

The problem you will run into with this idea is endogeneity.

By: ricochet biscuit

ricochet biscuit — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 18:51:30 -0800

That's fine for my purposes. Thanks!

By: clerestory

clerestory — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:45:12 -0800

Also consider (although you might already be aware), that airlines buy fuel in term contracts and some hedge, which can be risky. For example, hedging was working great for Southwest last fall, but not so much this fall.