Diehard Adelaide Crows fans are contending with surging airfares, with some saying they have been priced out of attending their team's knockout AFL semifinal against Brisbane on Saturday night.
The Crows will travel to The Gabba to take on the defending premiers this weekend, after defeating the Western Bulldogs at Adelaide Oval on Saturday.
Tickets to the upcoming match went on sale this morning.
After thousands of people joined virtual queues for tickets for the Crows' home final last week, many were able to access tickets immediately on Monday.
But some fans have been left to weigh up whether to make the trip.
While some tickets had previously cost less than $100, a return flight from Adelaide to Brisbane might now cost in excess of $1,000.
Crows fan Judy Bray said airfares before tickets went on sale to members were "around $500 each".
But just before tickets went on sale, she said, they almost doubled โ putting the game out of reach.
"At that stage they were up to about $1,000 each," she said.
"[I'm] extremely disappointed. I feel sorry for the club, if they other supporters feel the same way, they're not going to have good representation in the crowd, which is disappointing."
By 12pm on Monday, the cheapest one-way flights to Brisbane were priced at over $500 across all the major carriers.
A "Lite" fare on Virgin Australia with no-checked baggage was $578.11, transferring via Sydney, while a Jetstar Starter fare was $504.00.
Single flights back to Adelaide were also above $500, with a direct Jetstar flight starting at $643, and a Virgin flight via Melbourne priced at $565.
Ms Regan, who is the president of the Eyre Peninsula supporter group, was at a West Lakes travel agent trying to arrange a flight on Monday morning and was told it would be cheaper to fly to Brisbane with an international transfer.
"They shocked me first up by saying, 'It's just about [as] cheap to go from Adelaide to Singapore and Singapore to Brisbane', and I went, 'Oh my goodness me โ it's going to be out of reach'," she said.
"The price has tripled, basically, from the moment the final siren went."
Ms Regan is currently in Adelaide after attending the Crows' win over the Bulldogs and said that after a "hectic" morning she had shopped around.
But she said, like many other fans, she had been forced to make calculations about how long to stay in Brisbane.
"We've got some good flights through, but it means leaving tomorrow morning and flying back next Wednesday, so that was the cheapest flights," she said.
"If we wanted to go Friday or Saturday we were looking at return flights at about $1,200.
You've got accommodation on top of that โ you're going extra days in advance so extra accommodation [so] you have to weigh that up as to whether you are better to fly just on the day before and only have one or two nights accommodation so, there's a lot of things to factor in."
Crows forward Darcy Fogarty was today full of praise for the fans, saying they were crucial to the club's successes.
"The Brisbane fans are pretty passionate as well when they get 'Country Road' going โ it's hard to sort of stop that momentum," he said.
"We've got passionate fans as well and we always travel pretty well, so it's exciting, so hopefully they can get up there.
In a statement, Virgin Australia said it would "continue to monitor demand throughout the AFL finals series and add more flights where possible to help keep fares affordable for fans".
