Friday, May 09, 2008

All Aboard Latest Fare-Hike Express

I'm taking odds on how long they can keep this up before leisure demand crashes, but the major airlines have succeeded again in raising fares across the board.

Here's the update from Rick Seaney at FareCompare.com:

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"By Rick Seaney

This morning at 10 am EDT Continental matched the Delta initiated increase of an additional $20rt and at 12:30 pm EDT both Northwest and US Airways matched -- all six legacy airlines have significantly matched the increase across the bulk of their respective route systems.

This brings the fuel surcharge to $130 RT for many of the city pairs across the country (especially prevalent on those city pairs that do not overlap with a low-cost airline).

The only time increases have failed this year is when one of the legacy airlines has not matched -- so it is likely the will be the 11th (of 15) widely successful airfare hikes of 2008 (success measured by all six legacy airlines matching across their respective route systems).

I will update our time line at the end of the day Monday if no rollback activity occurs. I look for at least one more increase this month of a similar size."

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