Sky Talk

Delta/Northwest fare sale launched

Delta/Northwest launched a late summer and fall travel sale last night with price drops of over $100 roundtrip on thousands of city pairs, according to FareCompare.com.

In an e-mail blast, FareCompare chief executive Rick Seaney, said "this sale is likely to be widely matched...by both legacy and low cost airlines providing procrastinating consumers a last crack at late summer travel."

The sale is good until August 14 and is available for travel starting on August 18 through November 19.

Seaney continues, "While it is not unusual to see fall airfare discounts, this sale underscores the volatility of airline ticket pricing in a weak business demand environment."

We'll see if American and Southwest match the fare sale today.

-Andrea Ahles

Southwest, others, join Delta-Northwest in fare hike

Delta-Northwest is getting some company in its $10 roundtrip ($5 each way) fare increase, launched Thursday night across the bulk of its U.S. system.

Rick Seaney of farecompare.com says Southwest Airlines, and Alaska, Midwest, and Frontier airlines have significantly matched. US Airways has "selective matching," and United Airlines is "dabbling in some limited matching."

"American and Continental (are) on the sidelines so far," Seaney reports.

Southwest's increase was $5 each way on mid and long-haul routes, and $2 on short haul routes, outside of sale fares, Seaney said.

"It is very difficult to get an exact read on this hike, as there was some late-week off-peak travel discounting that is mixed in with the increase activity," Seaney said. "Typically, we will know if the hike attempt sticks by Monday afternoon."

"It appears at this point that the hike has a very good chance of surviving," he said. "I have never seen an airfare hike in four years fail when Southwest Airlines was in the mix."

- Scott Nishimura

Delta, Northwest, launch $10 roundtrip fare hike

Airlines are trying to raise fares again.

Thursday night, Delta Air Lines and Northwest Airlines launched a $10 roundtrip ($5 each way) fare increase across the bulk of their U.S. systems, says Rick Seaney, of farecompare.com

"This domestic airfare hike marks the third attempt in the past six weeks, with the past two tries successfully sticking," Seaney said.

He noted that American Airlines CEO Gerard Arpey said Wednesday that he figured AA needed another $17 per one-way customer to break even.

"If this domestic airfare increase sticks, it would mean an increase of $20 to $25 each way domestically for the legacy airlines in the past six weeks," Seaney said. "However, this increase does not include international tickets, nor the widely matched off-peak late summer/fall airfare domestic sale initated by Southwest earlier this week."

He continued:"Starting this past November through late May of this year, airfare prices had been in a free fall. In June, domestic airlines popped their chutes with a couple of airfare hikes. The big question is whether or not there is a hole in the canopy, as demand in tough economic times is impossible to predict."

-- Scott Nishimura

Fare hike fizzles

Rick Seaney at FareCompare.com is reporting that last week's attempt by the airline to raise fares failed after American and Continental began to roll back their price increases Sunday. It was the second big attempt to hike prices this year, and the second failure.

As is always the case with these things, that's good for consumers, and bad for the airlines. Despite the collapse of the price increase, Seaney thinks fares the airlines will keep trying.

"I wouldn’t be surprised to see a success in the near future with legacy airlines ticking up the base airline ticket price points by a relatively small amount," he said.

- Trebor Banstetter

Continental, AA, US Airways hike fares

For just the second time this year, several airlines have attempted a broad domestic fare hike, according to Rick Seaney of FareCompare.com. Continental increased leisure prices this morning on about 3,000 city pairs. American and U.S. Airways matched the hike, and also raised prices on business fares.

"The size of this hike is smaller than across the board hikes we saw last year during the run-up in fuel prices but does touch the bulk of their respective route systems," Seaney said.

Last week, U.S. Airways attempted a similar hike, which was matched by United, but no other airlines played along, and the increase was rolled back.

"With both Continental and American in the mix on this attempt it is likely this hike will stick," Seaney said.

The increase suggests that the airlines may finally be seeing the bottom of the drop in travel demand, and don't feel as much pressure to keep prices low to fill seats. We'll see if the increase lasts through the weekend.

- Trebor Banstetter

Fares still dropping

We've written a lot lately at Sky Talk and in the pages of the Star-Telegram about how fares have dropped significantly this year. The trend isn't showing any signs of letting up. Rick Seaney from FareCompare.com just sent us a note on the latest price declines he's spotted, which involve US Airways and United. Keep reading for his full update.

- Trebor Banstetter

AirTran slashes prices as well

In addition to Southwest, AirTran has also slashed fares today, with cheap seats available on flights as late as this fall. Prices are as low as $39 each way for travel through Nov. 4.

Most of the major airlines have already matched the sales from AirTran and Southwest.

"I can not remember the last time that an airline has given us this many travel days for a single airfare sale," said Tom Parsons, CEO of Bestfares.com.

- Trebor Banstetter

Southwest launches "truly unusual" fare sale

Rick Seaney at FareCompare.com reports that Southwest Airlines has launched a nationwide fare sale that he calls "truly unusual." He cites a few factors that make this sale stand out:

• It includes "Click 'n Save" promotional fares that are usually reserved for target cities, but in this case are available nationwide.

• It is the airline's first sale of the year to include cities in Florida, which suggests that leisure travel to beach destinations is slipping.

• The sale's travel dates extend through late June, a time when travelers are traditionally paying a premium, given the summer travel season. That indicates that Southwest is trying to convince consumers to book their tickets early.

It was Southwest's fifth sale since New Year's Day, and more evidence of sliding demand for travel.

- Trebor Banstetter

Cheap fares to Vegas

Rick Seaney of FareCompare.com reports that Southwest is offering flights from Dallas Love Field to Las Vegas for just $80 from Jan. 18 through 21. So if you're looking to celebrate the inauguration at the gaming tables, it's a pretty good bargain.

At the moment, American and U.S. Airways are charging $148 each way to Vegas from D/FW.

- Trebor Banstetter

D/FW-London fuel surcharges down

Tom Parsons of Bestfares.com tells us that fuel surcharges on flights from D/FW to London have dropped dramatically. For example, Delta, Air France, U.S. Airways and Northwest all dropped their round-trip surcharges to $264, up $366 earlier this fall and $426 in the summer.

"That's a really big drop," Parsons said.

Here's a chart of all the fuel surcharge changes provided by Bestfares, on flights from D/FW to London:

UPDATE, 12:01 P.M. THURSDAY

Rick Seaney of FareCompare.com is disputing Parsons' conclusions to some extent. Seaney says that the surcharges are down only on a small number of deeply discounted fares, but has remained at the $366 level for most fares.

- Trebor Banstetter