Is it me or did airfares just spike up?

[realmccoy]

Is it me or did airfares just spike up? Looking to book a flight from LAX to Orlando and in a week all flights just jumped up at least $100pp! Our cruise is in April 2010 so I started looking at prices and they have just all gone crazy...should of booked the low fares but was waiting to at least confirm our cruise reservation. :(

[Atomica]

Prices will stabilize again. Supply and demand.

 

Though I have learned, when you see an airfare you're comfortable with, book it!

[hdawson]

Have you noticed that oil closed Friday over $72 bucks a barrel and gas up to about 2.70?

[gargoyle999]

Is it me or did airfares just spike up?

 

I bought MSP to MKE for Nov $107 total on Wed. Thur was $137! Same seats were still open so must be the oil prices....

[Lovharvey]

I was looking at flights last weekend to Nashville and they were $244, today they are $264 for the same flights. I don't know when I am going to learn to buy something when I see it. I know this isn't for a cruise, but, just wanted to throw my two cents in.

[happy cruzer]

Yep, flight I was looking at went from 230 to 300 while we were on the system fri morning.

[YXU AC*SE]

Not surprising. Scott.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/16/business/16road.html?sq=&st=nyt&scp=6&pagewanted=print

 

Fares are Low, but Airlines Are Trying to End That

By JOE SHARKEY

 

FOR weeks, airline executives have been gingerly asserting that revenue seems to have stabilized after the deep plunge in the first five months of the year. But they say they see no clear sign yet that things are improving.

 

In the global airline industry, which is expected to lose $9 billion this year, this can mean two not necessarily contradictory things:

 

The industry has finally bottomed out, and since business is not bobbing up, some carriers may be sunk.

 

For business travelers, on the other hand, this is the best time in memory to hit the road. Fares are generally down in most markets. And airlines have been offering spot fare sales all year, even as the price of fuel and other operating costs rise.

 

But it looks as if the industry is going to try to change tactics. “Cash is king,” the director of the International Air Transport Association, Giovanni Bisignani, told airline executives last week at a global conference. He was echoing a growing consensus in the industry that selling seats below cost just to maintain market share is foolhardy and that the airline industry must become smaller, through more substantial capacity cuts and consolidation.

 

Many domestic airlines are now anxiously looking at new capacity cuts. If they get their way, the result will be a smaller air transportation system with fewer choices and higher fares.

 

Last week, Edward H. Bastian, the president of Delta Air Lines, said at an investors’ conference that fare sales and a grasp for more market share were not a viable long-term business plan.

 

“The competitive intensity is rather extreme,” he said. Fares need to rise and capacity must shrink, he said.

 

“As you look forward into the fall, and look at the prospect of higher oil prices, that’s got to put pressure on pricing,” he said. “We made the decision at Delta that we’re not going to put seats out into the marketplace if we can’t recover the cost.”

 

Delta, the world’s largest airline, was among several carriers that recently announced additional capacity cuts. With costs going up, with passenger demand supported partly by unsustainably low fares that attract leisure travelers, and with continuing weakness in the all-important business travel market, Mr. Bastian suggested that there might be “more dramatic capacity reductions as we get to the end of the year.”

 

For now, though, this remains a good time to fly, as airlines struggle to match capacity with weakened demand, especially from the high-yield business travel market.

 

“Companies are extraordinarily cautious about spending,” said Bryan Saltzburg, the general manager for initiatives at the travel site TripAdvisor.com. With airlines cutting prices just to fill seats, “leisure travelers are benefiting,” he said.

 

On the other hand, as has been noted here before, business travelers have been increasingly behaving like leisure travelers, trading a degree of flexibility on times, dates and even destinations for better prices on advance-purchase fares. Mr. Saltzburg, for example, said he recently booked a round-trip business class fare on United Airlines between Boston and London for $2,400, with advance-purchase and Saturday-night-stay restrictions. (Walk-up business-class fares between the East Coast and London typically cost about $9,500, but, obviously, few people are paying walk-up fares for unrestricted international business-class flights.)

 

Cheaper fares aside, other advantages for business travelers are the increased availability of frequent-flier award seats and upgrades, and unusual mileage promotions like the one that ended Sunday on Continental Airlines, which awarded double elite-status qualifying miles for each mile flown.

 

So enjoy yourself. But it’s later than you think. Just over the horizon are fare increases, more capacity cuts and even various kinds of consolidation, including quasi-mergers between airlines on certain highly competitive international markets.

 

These developing relationships, which allow partners to work closely to consolidate routes and fix fares, depend on exemptions from antitrust regulations. Delta and Air France-KLM, seeking to merge various routes between the United States and Europe, have received tentative approval from regulatory authorities in the United States, and are seeking approval from the European Union.

 

British Airways and American Airlines are contemplating a similar joint venture.

 

The advantage to an airline is that “you’re not flying wing-to-wing across the Atlantic” with a competitor, Willie Walsh, the British Airways chief executive, told me recently. “You can offer a much better schedule, spread it out during the day and manage the capacity.”

 

But the advantage to the passenger is nil, according to competitors like Richard Branson, the president of Virgin Atlantic, which competes aggressively on the United States-to-London routes. Mr. Branson said that the proposed new partnership between British Airways and American would “encourage even less competition by allowing dominant carriers to increase their stranglehold by setting prices together” and by coordinating schedules between the United States and London Heathrow Airport.

 

E-mail: jsharkey@nytimes.com

[odblnt]

Makes me real glad that I booked our August trip from Honolulu to Wash DC about a month ago during that sale ($400 rt). Priced the same route the other day and it was $720.

[whale-watcher]

On the other hand....yesterday priced out MSP-RSW RT for October at 309...today the same flights were 259!

[alidor]

What you have to realize is that airlines literally change fares 4 times a day. What you see is the result of basic supply and demand. If they see a flight is selling out, they withdraw the lowest fare seats or greatly reduce their number. In reverse, if a flight is not selling, they'll increase the number of low fare seat availability.

 

Think of it as playing the stock market.

[steve20832]

You want to go to Florida during spring break. Prices won't be cheap!

[realmccoy]

Thanks for all the replies, I will wait this one out and see what the prices do.

[greatam]

I sure wouldn't wait too long. Oil is definitely going up, capacity is being cut. Airlines are still hurting and it won't take much for them to raise the prices significantly.

[kenish]

OP- I agree with others, it's highly unlikely IMO that fares between the LA area and MCO will decrease and it's very likely there will be a big increase. Florida is a low-yield market due to most travel being deeply discounted leisure fares. Airlines have already started cutting back service to many Florida cities or eliminating it entirely. (Ask residents of FLL, Sarasota, Ft. Myers, Melbourne, etc.)

 

Also be aware fares did not go up....the lowest fares sold out. As the next cheapest fares sell out, it will force you into higher and higher fare buckets. My theory on why the "cheap seats" sold out in the past week is you appear to be traveling during college Spring Break. Students finished their finals and booked their Spring Break travel before everyone went away for the summer. Also, many colleges are strongly advising against student travel to Mexico, adding to the pressure on flights to Florida.

 

Don't wait.

[6rugrats]

I bought MSP to MKE for Nov $107 total on Wed. Thur was $137! Same seats were still open so must be the oil prices....

 

The available, or "open" seats have absolutely nothing to do with the available fare buckets. You can have 200 seats in Y and only four available at the cheapest price. When those sell out, that fare is gone and it appears that the fare has increased. Seat map showing available seats has nothing to do with it.

 

Other posters are correct; the cheaper fare buckets have sold out.

[realmccoy]

For everyone out there stating that I am traveling during Spring Break and that is why prices were higher, Spring Break is earlier in 2010 and most colleges/ schools will be out March 14 - April 11, 2020. So no, not spring break, and airfares did drop down today about $80.00 so looks like it may go up and down for ahwile.

[travelntreats]

For everyone out there stating that I am traveling during Spring Break and that is why prices were higher, Spring Break is earlier in 2010 and most colleges/ schools will be out March 14 - April 11, 2020. So no, not spring break, and airfares did drop down today about $80.00 so looks like it may go up and down for ahwile.

Spring break has a wider window than what you are stating... it various in different parts of the country.