You might ordinarily assume that for a major trip to Brazil to attend the World Cup that football fans would sort everything out months in advance.
Well, either Brits are tardy folk (ahem) or just live by the seat of their replica football shorts - or both - because it appears that many have waited until almost the final whistle to organise their flights.
European online travel agency eDreams (more World Cup stuff here) has analysed air ticket booking patterns since the beginning of 2014 to establish the peak time for fans securing their passage across the Atlantic from the UK to Brazil.
The company says it was surprised to learn that, remarkably, it appears the most popular month for football-hungry travellers was actually May, just a few weeks before the tournament started in earnest (the opening game is on Thursday 12 June is Sao Paolo between Brazil and Croatia).
Almost a third of all air tickets between the UK and cities hosting games during the World Cup were booked online during May, over 10% higher than any other month this year.
- January - 18.5%
- February - 14.5%
- March - 19%
- April - 17.5%
- May - 31%
Whilst this doesn't take into account the bookings made after England qualified for the tournament in October 2013, especially for the packages put together by tour operators and the official England supporters' organisations, it does illustrate perhaps how spontaneous fans can be if their desire is to simply be in the country (often, as previous tournaments have shown, without tickets for any actual matches).
Generally, it appears Northern European countries have been more eager than their southern counterparts to book tickets online for the tournament.
In the UK, for example, eDreams says it has seen a 190% increase in bookings to Brazil year-on-year, with France (140%) and Germany (113%) also seeing large numbers of people heading to South America. Croatia topped the lot with a mammoth 2,600% increase, probably illustrating its previously low traffic to Brazil.
Italy and Portugal, despite both being football crazy countries (and with a higher chance of winning the tournament, most suspect, than the UK), have perhaps seen the impact of their own economic difficulties played out with increases year-on-year of just 53% and 22% respectively.
This pretty much chimes with early data released by Amadeus which indicates a definite split between the top and bottom halves of Europe, with some northern countries sending more than three times the number of those in the south, with some markets there either flat or even decreasing.
NB:Football laptop image via Shutterstock.