Farecast just unrolled a new feature of their software that lets you compare international ticket prices. You could search for them before, mind you, it’s just that you couldn’t compare and research them.
According to this year’s pile of data, international prices are 11% higher than 2007, with the Chicago–Paris route showing the steepest increase of 23%. Of course this doesn’t factor any sale fares into the equation, which could be outside of the norm and which many bargain hunters will end up booking.
And that’s much of the reason that I’ve been slow to adopt Farecast’s mechanism. So many international tickets that I purchase are booked on sale and last minute fares that the canonical data they provide are useless for me. But if you’d like to get a good ballpark price for how much your tickets are going to cost, give it a go.