'Insane prices': Can Australians in Sweden make it home for Christmas?

What's the problem? 

The Covid-19 pandemic prevented many families from travelling back to their home countries for Christmas in both 2020 and 2021, meaning this year there is an enormous amount of pent-up demand. 

At the same time, many airlines are struggling to bring back staffing to pre-pandemic levels, making it difficult for them to increase the number of flights to meet demand. 

Finally, today $90-a-barrel oil prices have significantly increased airlines' fuel costs. 

Airlines are now looking to make up for lost ground, pass on their costs and cash in on the demand, with customers feeling the brunt.

As a result, it is almost impossible for the average family to travel.

It's not just the price of flights. With a weak krona and a strong Australian dollar, Swedish wages don't stretch that far back home in Australia, meaning expenditure like booking internal flights to visit relatives in different cities, or booking nights in hotels, starts to add up. 

“It’s a strain on everybody”

Stephanie Öberg has been travelling back and forth between Australia and Sweden for the past eleven years with her Swedish-Australian family. She says that ticket prizes have only really started to take off since this summer. 

“Before it was easy. In February the tickets weren’t that bad, but after the summer in Sweden ticket prices have just exploded," she tells The Local. “People have already not seen their family for two-and-a-half years, and with these prices, it makes it impossible." 

Australians living in Sweden and other foreigners hoping to travel home for Christmas will not only be looking at the cost of the flights, but at the duration of travel as well.

“I looked at tickets, and it was insane, there were no normal tickets going," Öberg says. “I had to do Copenhagen-Istanbul-Jakarta-Sydney, and it was 5,000 Australian dollars." 

Michael Cavanagh, from Malmö, ended up cancelling his plans to travel back to Melbourne with wife and two kids, after deciding that his family simply couldn't justify laying out 96,000 kronor on the flights alone.  

"If I was to go every year, I would never be able to save a single thing. I just I wouldn't have anything for my kids. I wouldn't be able to help them with a deposit on a house. It's a huge financial burden, and I really felt that after having my second child. It just took it to another level." 

It wasn't just the cost of getting there and back that put him off, but the cost of being there. 

"My family's quite spread out, so for me take the burden off one part of family, I'd have to fly from Melbourne to Brisbane, which is also quite an expensive flight," says Michael Cavanagh, from Malmö. "On top of that, there's the expenses in Australia.  Australia's not a cheap country, so if I was to go out to dinner, it would cost a fortune." 

For him, it's been painful not to be able to show his children the places he grew up in for another year, and for them to meet his sister, brother, and their families. 

"It's really sad, because I really want to see my kids in Australia. I want them to hear my language on the street. I want to see them being spoken to by someone at a cashier, asking how their day is. I want to see those small interactions. I want to see them eat a sausage roll from a bakery, and know the smell in the morning, and the sound of the birds, and all those small little things. It's a little bit heartbreaking."

So what are your options?

Paying the price

Using Stockholm to Sydney as an example, flights for two adults and two children for two weeks over Christmas will cost around 120,000 Swedish kronor for a return flight with one layover. Cheaper flights, with two or more layovers, can be found at just under 100,000 kronor for a return flight.

Accepting a long layover 

Cavanagh said that he could have knocked a 10,000 or more of the price of his family's tickets if he had accepted a longer layover, but he didn't think he children -- at three and seven -- would be able to handle a layover of more than about six hours. 

"We needed a reasonable flight that we think the kids could tolerate," he says. The 96,000 kronor flight took 28 hours on the way back and about 34 hours on the way back. "It was quite going out there, with a couple of hours' layover, and then it was maybe six or seven hours' layover on the way back, which is acceptable."

Flying after Christmas

Booking after Christmas will definitely save you money with one-stop flights currently sitting at around 83,000 kronor for two adults and two children and two-stop flights currently going for around 75,000 kronor. 

But Cavanagh said that the problem for him, and probably most other Australians, was that family back home don't get very many weeks of holiday a year. 

"The biggest problem, fundamentally, is that Australians don't have as many holidays as Swedes. Christmas time is when people are on holiday, but it's also when the flights are most expensive," he says. "We can go potentially randomly during another time of the year, but we can't expect our friends and family to be available to greet us, which is kind of the whole point." 

Other routes

Foreigners in Sweden often look at flying from international hubs such as Copenhagen, Amsterdam, or Rome. 

Flights from Copenhagen to Sydney are, however, currently even more expensive than those from Stockholm.

The cheapest option in Europe right now appears to be Rome Fiumicino airport, with one-stop flights for two adults and two children currently sitting at around 108,000 kronor

Easter, or Christmas 2023?

For many, the only option will probably be to put off your family Christmas again until 2023 in the hope that prices will level out, although global airlines have not released tickets for these dates yet. 

The Cavanagh family are now putting their hopes on Easter 2024. 

"Our new plan now is to skip the Christmas thing and try and go around the Easter. This year, unfortunately my sister had already made Easter plans. But next year, we're going to try it."

Meeting relatives half-way in Thailand or elsewhere? 

With cheap(er) charter flights to Thailand available both from Sweden and from Australia, it can make sense to share the financial burden with family in Australia. 

This is what the Cavanagh family are planning to do in 2025, but he's not sure it's fair. 

"It would split the burden a little bit between my relatives and me, but they're not the ones that left, so I think the financial burden is on me." 

They are also considering taking a cheaper charter flight to Thailand, staying a week to get over the jetlag, and then taking another charter flight to Australia, for a shorter one-week stay. 

By Harry Buttenshaw and Richard Orange