Palm Beach International Airport and Fort Lauderdale International Airport were busy on Wednesday with travelers trying to leave Florida.
Many travelers are saying it was hard to find flights from any Florida airports. Once they did, they were shocked by the prices.
Frank Zeccola from Palm Beach said he paid $1,900 one-way for two people and looking at the fares on Wednesday afternoon, that seems like a deal. Prices jumped to $1,800 for a one-way ticket to Atlanta from Fort Lauderdale.
“Within small increments of maybe half an hour to an hour, as we were deciding it, the prices started to get much higher and higher,” Zeccola said.
Other passengers said they looked at available flights that were reasonably priced but by the time they had filled out their credit card information and wanted to book it, the flight had disappeared and they had to start all over again.
“Right now there’s nothing available,” Zeccola said. “There’s literally nothing available. People are being charged $1,500 to be somewhere safe. There’s something wrong with that.
Wednesday afternoon, JetBlue announced its ticket prices from any city in Florida where the airline operates will be capped at $99 up to the last available seat for direct flights and $159 for connecting flights, so people can evacuate as Hurricane Irma comes closer.
High airfare prices are not illegal in Florida but officials with Attorney General Pam Bondi’s office said they’re calling airlines and asking them not price gouge.
