Prices for Airfare Tickets for Some Peak Travel Dates Rising
Prices for airfare tickets for some routes and certain peak travel dates have been rising as airlines try to improve their revenues which have been suffering from operational cost pressures and the overall economic downturn.
The peak travel dates being targeted by airlines for imposing a surcharge of $10 are November 29th, the Sunday after Thanksgiving Day, and the second and third days of January.
Based on air travel history, the day after Thanksgiving and the Wednesday before Thanksgiving are the busiest days for air travel in the U.S., with the second and third days of January following in the ranking.
Among the airlines imposing premiums on these peak air travel days are American Airlines, United Airlines, US Airways Delta/Northwest, Continental and Southwest. Southwest Airlines though has been announcing that it will not be raising its advertised fun fares. Continental also has reduced the $10 other airlines are charging to $6 and $4 in certain routes.
According to airfare analysts, if the $10 hike is imposed by airlines on airfare tickets for other days, the hike would be the second increase imposed by the airline industry in two weeks and the fifth increase imposed this year.
Analysts also said that low-cost airlines such as Southwest and AirTran typically do not announce airfare hikes to match fare hikes by their bigger airline counterparts immediately, but it is possible they are also considering imposing surcharges.
In a media event conducted by Southwest Airlines, its chief executive Gary Kelly said that Southwest have record loads in October and ticket sales for travel in November and December are strong, but he reiterated that the rise in oil prices this week to $80 per barrel is a great concern.
Southwest though said it has been imposing modest increases to offset higher costs, and it is not planning on increasing fares just for certain travel days.
It was American Airlines which started the airfare hikes, when it imposed up to $16 for some roundtrip tickets. The other legacy airlines followed quickly, including Continental, United, US Airways and Delta/Northwest.
According to airfare processing system operators, most airfare hikes happen during the last days of the week and most sales and discounting occur at the start of the week. They also observed that airfare tickets have peak travel surcharges not only for travels for Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day, but also for spring break, Memorial Day and Christmas.
