Will fares go so high that only the rich can fly?

Will fares go so high that only the rich can fly?

By Tim Wimborne, Reuters file

"We have had our fun; the party is over," an airline analyst says of fliers
who had grown accustomed to cheap tickets since the industry was
deregulated.



Deregulation of the airline industry 30 years ago made air travel affordable
to most Americans. Rising airfares threaten to again make flying a service
for the affluent.

Airfares have risen this summer more than any year in the past quarter
century, new studies by airfare experts show. The studies, done by
Travelocity, FareCompare.com and Harrell Associates at USA TODAY's request,
show that domestic fares this summer are up 12% to 15%, and on some routes,
more than 200%.


"Consumers are already shell-shocked by higher prices, but their wallets are
going to be hit harder than ever before on their next vacation or business
trip," says Rick Seaney, CEO of FareCompare.com, which tracks airfares for
consumers.

Airlines are raising fares to combat record jet-fuel prices, which have
nearly doubled during the past 12 months. The fares often include fuel
surcharges that can range from a few to hundreds of dollars, and a growing
number of tickets include restrictions that require fliers to buy further in
advance or stay a number of days at a destination. Fliers also face an
escalating number of extra fees for roomy seats, checked bags, ticket
changes and other services.

For a family of four, a cross-country flight this summer may cost about
$1,000 more than last summer. In late July, for example, United Airlines'
cheapest non-stop round-trip coach fare for travel in mid-August between San
Francisco and Washington was $580, or $2,320 for four people, according to
FareCompare.com. That's $920 more than the family would have paid United on
that route last summer.

Higher airfares are causing vacationers and business travelers to cut back
on air travel, and raising many companies' travel costs.

Robert Yodice, of Cleveland, flew to Las Vegas 10 times last year, but only
twice this year. He says he's cut back because the round-trip fare is at
least double the $200 to $300 he used to pay.

"With rising airfares, I've had to take a completely different approach to
my leisure travel," says Yodice, who owns a TV production company. "There's
a lot more time invested in researching better fares, looking at alternate
airports and determining any potential savings from driving to an airport
that may not necessarily be closest to home."

Changing perspective on 'cheap'

An extreme example of the new price of air travel is found on the
Chicago-Minneapolis/St. Paul route. On July 10, US Airways' (LCC) cheapest
fare for travel at the end of the month was $406 ‹ a 276% increase on last
July's $108 fare, according to FareCompare.com. United Airlines' (UAUA)
cheapest fare was $376 ‹ a 382% increase on last July's $78. Northwest
Airlines' (NWA) cheapest fare was $140 ‹ up 79%.

United spokeswoman Robin Urbanski says the $78 fare last year was a special
sale price in line with competitors' prices.

Such bargain airfares may be hard to find this year, but they haven't
disappeared and can often be found on airline websites.

Discount carrier Spirit offers $19 one-way fares on its website for August
travel between Fort Lauderdale and Tampa, Orlando or the Bahamas. Spirit
also has $89 fares from Boston to Fort Lauderdale.

Bigger airlines also offer some bargains. American Airlines' (AMR) cheapest
round-trip coach fare last week for travel in September between Kansas City
and West Palm Beach, Fla., with a stop in Dallas/Fort Worth, was $120, plus
$42 in taxes and fees.

Besides Spirit, the lowest fares are usually found on routes where Southwest
(LUV) flies, says airfare expert Tom Parsons of Bestfares.com, an online
ticket wholesaler that identifies fare bargains for consumers. Competing
airlines match Southwest's low fares, but they charge more fees for checking
bags and other services, he says.

Low fares can also be found on routes flown by AirTran (AAI), JetBlue (JBLU)
and Frontier, says Bob Harrell, head of Harrell Associates, a consulting
firm that focuses on airlines and fares.

Still, even low-fare airlines are raising prices. Southwest said recently
that its average fare in the second quarter was $114.48, up 8.4% from the
same period last year. JetBlue's average fare rose 13.1% to $138.13.

More increases are expected in the fall, when carriers say they will reduce
seat capacity on many routes and stop flying some others. Some airlines have
already reduced capacity up to 10%, and further cuts ‹ up to 15% ‹ are
planned for the fall.

Reductions are needed because rising prices mean less passenger demand,
American Airlines CEO Gerard Arpey said in a recent conference call
announcing the carrier's second-quarter financial results. American "has
initiated or participated in over 30 domestic fare and surcharge increases"
this year, he said.

On 21 occasions this year, Seaney says, one of these six airlines ‹
American, United, Delta (DAL), Continental (CAL), Northwest and US Airways ‹
raised round-trip fares more than $10 on two-thirds of its routes, and 15
times the other airlines matched the fares. In 2007, an airline in that
group raised fares 23 times, and the other carriers matched 17 times.

If oil prices, which recently have fallen to the mid-$120s a barrel, rise to
$150 a barrel, the cost of jet fuel could increase ticket prices to a level
only the affluent could afford, says Seaney.

"While travelers are no doubt feeling pinched ‹ especially in light of
rising food and gasoline prices ‹ it is difficult to blame airlines for
raising prices in order to cover costs that are, by and large, beyond their
control," says Darin Lee, an airline economics expert at LECG, a consultant
in Cambridge, Mass.

Consumers have enjoyed cheap fares since the airline industry was
deregulated in 1978. Stiff competition has kept fares low, but it has also
driven many airlines out of business and forced others to struggle for
profitability. Faced with record fuel prices, airlines this year may lose up
to $10 billion, says the Air Transport Association (ATA), an airline trade
group.

"We have had our fun; the party is over," Ray Neidl, an industry analyst for
Calyon Securities, told Boeing executives last month. "We have had cheap
flights, and now it is time to pay the bill."

Leisure travelers have been hit with some of the biggest fare increases,
airfare studies show.

€The average cheapest coach fare in June and July was 16% more expensive
than last summer, according to Harrell Associates, which tracked published
fares each Monday from June 16-July 7 for six airlines' top
revenue-producing domestic routes. Those fares are highly restricted, with
advance-purchase and minimum-stay requirements and a penalty for itinerary
changes.

Combining those fares with the least expensive coach fares generally used by
business travelers ‹ refundable fares booked no more than three days before
departure with no minimum-stay requirements ‹ the average cheapest coach
fares this summer are 12% higher than last summer.

€FareCompare.com data examined 145 domestic routes, comparing airlines'
cheapest coach ticket prices on Thursday, July 10, with those of Thursday,
July 12, 2007. Of 937 fare listings, more than three-quarters showed a fare
increase from a year earlier; 54% showed a fare increase of at least 20%.
The comparison excluded Southwest Airlines, which doesn't list its fares in
all computer reservations systems.

€Travelocity, which sells millions of tickets annually, says domestic
tickets sold through May for travel between Memorial Day and Labor Day
averaged $366. That's a 15% increase on last summer's average of $318, says
Travelocity editor Amy Ziff.

A 12% or 15% increase is huge compared with year-over-year pricing data
compiled by the ATA. Such a large increase has not happened since 1980, when
the price of tickets sold rose 28% from 1979.

In 11 of 27 years since 1980, the price of tickets sold declined from the
previous year. Only two years had a price increase of more than 7%.

Trips not taken

Many vacationers are swallowing the fare increases, but others are
postponing trips, going to cheaper destinations or planning differently.

Tiffany West, of Tacoma, Wash., planned to go to Hawaii last May with her
husband, Jeff, and says she usually pays $500 to $700 for a round-trip
ticket. But the cheapest tickets were more than $1,000, so she postponed the
trip until September, when a $525 fare was available.

Instead of paying the high airfares to London, Paris or Rome this summer,
many vacationers are booking less expensive or better-value flights to
Central America, South America or Asia, says Ziff. "They're starting to look
at destinations like Buenos Aires, where you can have a relatively European
experience and the dollar goes further," she says.

Some international fares are lower this summer, but they have high fuel
surcharges that make the total price higher than last summer, Parsons says.

For example, he says, the cheapest round-trip fare on American Airlines last
week for September travel between Dallas and London was $453, plus a $426
fuel surcharge, for a total of $879. Last summer, the fare was $476, plus a
$130 fuel surcharge, or $606 total.

Restricting business travel

The airfare increases are also affecting business. Of 55 corporate travel
managers who responded to a mid-July survey by the Association of Corporate
Travel Executives, more than half said rising airfares have caused their
companies to cut back on the number of business trips. The ACTE represents
2,500 travel managers and suppliers.

Higher airfares may add "tens of millions of dollars" to the travel budgets
of Fortune 500 companies that spend at least $100 million on airfares per
year, says Hervé Sedky, a vice president at American Express Business
Travel.

Many business travelers buy tickets at the last minute and are unable to
take advantage of cheaper, advance-purchase fares. Those last-minute,
"walk-up" fares are also rising.

For a one-way New York-Los Angeles ticket on Tuesday, for example, Delta Air
Lines' cheapest "Y" fare ‹ an industry classification for an unrestricted,
full-price coach fare ‹ cost $969, plus an $85 fuel surcharge, says Parsons.
That's more than 40% higher than last year, when the price was $754 with no
fuel surcharge.

A growing number of companies have begun requiring approval for all air
travel to company meetings, training sessions, conferences and conventions,
says ACTE executive director Susan Gurley. Some companies are asking
employees to share hotel rooms on business trips.

The companies that have been hit hardest by airfare increases are those with
a large volume of travel to Europe, Gurley says. Some have reported hundreds
of thousands of dollars in increased travel expenses, and some no longer
allow employees to fly to Europe on business- or first-class tickets.

Small companies have also had to adjust.

Faith Varwig, who runs an aviation security consulting company in St. Louis,
says the price of tickets to some cities has doubled or tripled. "We are
doing more teleconferencing and trying to reduce trips to client sites," she
says.

Wendy Desabaye runs a consulting business in Boston that plans corporate
meetings for companies based in New England. She says rising airfares have
caused companies to stop scheduling meetings outside the region.

"I've been in business 10 years, and I've planned more meetings this year in
Boston than in the past 10 years," Desabaye says. "Instead of requesting
meetings in Hawaii and other faraway places, my clients are booking meetings
where their employees can arrive by car or train."

On Aug 4, 8:23*am, Earl Evleth wrote:
Will fares go so high that only the rich can fly?

By Tim Wimborne, Reuters file

"We have had our fun; the party is over," an airline analyst says of fliers
who had grown accustomed to cheap tickets since the industry was
deregulated.

Deregulation of the airline industry 30 years ago made air travel affordable
to most Americans. Rising airfares threaten to again make flying a service
for the affluent.

Airfares have risen this summer more than any year in the past quarter
century, new studies by airfare experts show. The studies, done by
Travelocity, FareCompare.com and Harrell Associates at USA TODAY's request,
show that domestic fares this summer are up 12% to 15%, and on some routes,
more than 200%.

"Consumers are already shell-shocked by higher prices, but their wallets are
going to be hit harder than ever before on their next vacation or business
trip," says Rick Seaney, CEO of FareCompare.com, which tracks airfares for
consumers.

Airlines are raising fares to combat record jet-fuel prices, which have
nearly doubled during the past 12 months. The fares often include fuel
surcharges that can range from a few to hundreds of dollars, and a growing
number of tickets include restrictions that require fliers to buy further in
advance or stay a number of days at a destination. Fliers also face an
escalating number of extra fees for roomy seats, checked bags, ticket
changes and other services.

For a family of four, a cross-country flight this summer may cost about
$1,000 more than last summer. In late July, for example, United Airlines'
cheapest non-stop round-trip coach fare for travel in mid-August between San
Francisco and Washington was $580, or $2,320 for four people, according to
FareCompare.com. That's $920 more than the family would have paid United on
that route last summer.

Higher airfares are causing vacationers and business travelers to cut back
on air travel, and raising many companies' travel costs.

Robert Yodice, of Cleveland, flew to Las Vegas 10 times last year, but only
twice this year. He says he's cut back because the round-trip fare is at
least double the $200 to $300 he used to pay.

"With rising airfares, I've had to take a completely different approach to
my leisure travel," says Yodice, who owns a TV production company. "There's
a lot more time invested in researching better fares, looking at alternate
airports and determining any potential savings from driving to an airport
that may not necessarily be closest to home."

Changing perspective on 'cheap'

An extreme example of the new price of air travel is found on the
Chicago-Minneapolis/St. Paul route. On July 10, US Airways' (LCC) cheapest
fare for travel at the end of the month was $406 ‹ a 276% increase on last
July's $108 fare, according to FareCompare.com. United Airlines' (UAUA)
cheapest fare was $376 ‹ a 382% increase on last July's $78. Northwest
Airlines' (NWA) cheapest fare was $140 ‹ up 79%.

United spokeswoman Robin Urbanski says the $78 fare last year was a special
sale price in line with competitors' prices.

Such bargain airfares may be hard to find this year, but they haven't
disappeared and can often be found on airline websites.

Discount carrier Spirit offers $19 one-way fares on its website for August
travel between Fort Lauderdale and Tampa, Orlando or the Bahamas. Spirit
also has $89 fares from Boston to Fort Lauderdale.

Bigger airlines also offer some bargains. American Airlines' (AMR) cheapest
round-trip coach fare last week for travel in September between Kansas City
and West Palm Beach, Fla., with a stop in Dallas/Fort Worth, was $120, plus
$42 in taxes and fees.

Besides Spirit, the lowest fares are usually found on routes where Southwest
(LUV) flies, says airfare expert Tom Parsons of Bestfares.com, an online
ticket wholesaler that identifies fare bargains for consumers. Competing
airlines match Southwest's low fares, but they charge more fees for checking
bags and other services, he says.

Low fares can also be found on routes flown by AirTran (AAI), JetBlue (JBLU)
and Frontier, says Bob Harrell, head of Harrell Associates, a consulting
firm that focuses on airlines and fares.

Still, even low-fare airlines are raising prices. Southwest said recently
that its average fare in the second quarter was $114.48, up 8.4% from the
same period last year. JetBlue's average fare rose 13.1% to $138.13.

More increases are expected in the fall, when carriers say they will reduce
seat capacity on many routes and stop flying some others. Some airlines have
already reduced capacity up to 10%, and further cuts ‹ up to 15% ‹ are
planned for the fall.

Reductions are needed because rising prices mean less passenger demand,
American Airlines CEO Gerard Arpey said in a recent conference call
announcing the carrier's second-quarter financial results. American "has
initiated or participated in over 30 domestic fare and surcharge increases"
this year, he said.

On 21 occasions this year, Seaney says, one of these six airlines ‹
American, United, Delta (DAL), Continental (CAL), Northwest and US Airways ‹
raised round-trip fares more than $10 on two-thirds of its routes, and 15
times the other airlines matched the fares. In 2007, an airline in that
group raised fares 23 times, and the other carriers matched 17 times.

If oil prices, which recently have fallen to the mid-$120s a barrel, rise to
$150 a barrel, the cost of jet fuel could increase ticket prices to a level
only the affluent could afford, says Seaney.

"While travelers are no doubt feeling pinched ‹ especially in light of
rising food and gasoline prices ‹ it is difficult to blame airlines for
raising prices in order to cover costs that are, by and large, beyond their
control," says Darin Lee, an airline economics expert at LECG, a consultant
in Cambridge, Mass.

Consumers have enjoyed cheap fares since the airline industry was
deregulated in 1978. Stiff competition has kept fares low, but it has also
driven many airlines out of business and forced others to struggle for
profitability. Faced with record fuel prices, airlines this year may lose up
to $10 billion, says the Air Transport Association (ATA), an airline trade
group.

"We have had our fun; the party is over," Ray Neidl, an industry analyst for
Calyon Securities, told Boeing executives last month. "We have had cheap
flights, and now it is time to pay the bill."

Leisure travelers have been hit with some of the biggest fare increases,
airfare studies show.

€The average cheapest coach fare in June and July was 16% more expensive
than last summer, according to Harrell Associates, which tracked published
fares each Monday from June 16-July 7 for six airlines' top
revenue-producing domestic routes. Those fares are highly restricted, with
advance-purchase and minimum-stay requirements and a penalty for itinerary
changes.

Combining those fares with the least expensive coach fares generally used by
business travelers ‹ refundable fares booked no more than three days before
departure with no minimum-stay requirements ‹ the average cheapest coach
fares this summer are 12% higher than last summer.

€FareCompare.com data examined 145 domestic routes, comparing airlines'
cheapest coach ticket prices on Thursday, July 10, with those of Thursday,
July 12, 2007. Of 937 fare listings, more than three-quarters showed a fare
increase from a year earlier; 54% showed a fare increase of at least 20%.
The comparison excluded Southwest Airlines, which doesn't list its fares in
all computer reservations systems.

€Travelocity, which sells millions of tickets annually, says domestic
tickets sold through May for travel between Memorial Day and Labor Day
averaged $366. That's a 15% increase on last summer's average of $318, says
Travelocity editor Amy Ziff.

A 12% or 15% increase is huge compared with year-over-year pricing data
compiled by the ATA. Such a large increase has not happened since 1980, when
the price of tickets sold rose 28% from 1979.

In 11 of 27 years since 1980, the price of tickets sold declined from the
previous year. Only two years had a price increase of more than 7%.

Trips not taken

Many vacationers are swallowing the fare increases, but others are
postponing trips, going to cheaper destinations or planning differently.

Tiffany West, of Tacoma, Wash., planned to go to Hawaii last May with her
husband, Jeff, and says she usually pays $500 to $700 for a round-trip
ticket. But the cheapest tickets were more than $1,000, so she postponed the
trip until September, when a $525 fare was available.

Instead of paying the high airfares to London, Paris or Rome this summer,
many vacationers are booking less expensive or better-value flights to
Central America, South America or Asia, says Ziff. "They're starting to look
at destinations like Buenos Aires, where you can have a relatively European
experience and the dollar goes further," she says.

Some international fares are lower this summer, but they have high fuel
surcharges that make the total price higher than last summer, Parsons says.

For example, he says, the cheapest round-trip fare on American Airlines last
week for September travel between Dallas and London was $453, plus a $426
fuel surcharge, for a total of $879. Last summer, the fare was $476, plus a
$130 fuel surcharge, or $606 total.

Restricting business travel

The airfare increases are also affecting business. Of 55 corporate travel
managers who responded to a mid-July survey by the Association of Corporate
Travel Executives, more than half said rising airfares have caused their
companies to cut back on the number of business trips. The ACTE represents
2,500 travel managers and suppliers.

Higher airfares may add "tens of millions of dollars" to the travel budgets
of Fortune 500 companies that spend at least $100 million on airfares per
year, says Hervé Sedky, a vice president at American Express Business
Travel.

Many business travelers buy tickets at the last minute and are unable to
take advantage of cheaper, advance-purchase fares. Those last-minute,
"walk-up" fares are also rising.

For a one-way New York-Los Angeles ticket on Tuesday, for example, Delta Air
Lines' cheapest "Y" fare ‹ an industry classification for an unrestricted,
full-price coach fare ‹ cost $969, plus an $85 fuel surcharge, says Parsons.
That's more than 40% higher than last year, when the price was $754 with no
fuel surcharge.

A growing number of companies have begun requiring approval for all air
travel to company meetings, training sessions, conferences and conventions,
says ACTE executive director Susan Gurley. Some companies are asking
employees to share hotel rooms on business trips.

The companies that have been hit hardest by airfare increases are those with
a large volume of travel to Europe, Gurley says. Some have reported hundreds
of thousands of dollars in increased travel expenses, and some no longer
allow employees to fly to Europe on business- or first-class tickets.

Small companies have also had to adjust.

Faith Varwig, who runs an aviation security consulting company in St. Louis,
says the price of tickets to some cities has doubled or tripled. "We are
doing more teleconferencing and trying to reduce trips to client sites," she
says.

Wendy Desabaye runs a consulting business in Boston that plans corporate
meetings for companies based in New England. She says rising airfares have
caused companies to stop scheduling meetings outside the region.

"I've been in business 10 years, and I've planned more meetings this year in
Boston than in the past 10 years," Desabaye says. "Instead of requesting
meetings in Hawaii and other faraway places, my clients are booking meetings
where their employees can arrive by car or train."

Yeah, the bus and the train generally utilize diesel fuel, which is
way up too, so i don't see a good alternative for travel

So, less people can afford to travel period

The travel-vacation industry will seemingly contract and go into
recession-depression (if not already)

The fuel price threatens many industries, and so far as i can envision
it helps a relative few

The price went "down" to $117--$120 today apparently because of some
"demand destruction" & so-called "market forces"

Our banks, corporations and politicos are seemingly dumbstruck, though
we've had many years since 1973 of warnings:

Jimmy Carter at least should feel vindicated--he became disliked
because he tried to adapt/prepare us for what has now come about

I expect much financial-economic suffering, and I don't think it can
be avoided now

If I were "in charge," I'd declare that patents that allegedly were
bought out and suppressed by the prevailing oil
interests, would be public domain because of this national emergency
crisis

Govt fleets should be converted to natural gas asap

Boone Pickens (a Texas oil speculator who knows of what he speaks) is
not bull-****ting around, and I'm not either

On Aug 4, 5:23 am, Earl Evleth wrote:
Will fares go so high that only the rich can fly?


I suppose, if oil got really precious.

I looked at a few advance-purchase fares going to Seattle, New York
and London (from LAX); most fares are
noticeably higher than in years past, but not really shockingly so,
considering all
that's going on.

I think a lot of less affluent people will cut back on flying. (I grew
up in the 70's, and just about the
only airline flights I can remember taking were the family trips from
LAX to Memphis. These
were about every 3-4 years or so)

Not only the high airfare/gas costs, but hotels and restaurants are
getting expensive too (expect to pay
$150+ per night for a halfway decent room) Add to that the TSA
hassles, etc. and you can see why more
people are deciding to stay home....

Notice, evleth has left for holidays right in august, isn't he wealthy ?

"Earl Evleth" a écrit dans le message de
...

Will fares go so high that only the rich can fly?

By Tim Wimborne, Reuters file

"We have had our fun; the party is over," an airline analyst says of
fliers
who had grown accustomed to cheap tickets since the industry was
deregulated.



Deregulation of the airline industry 30 years ago made air travel
affordable
to most Americans. Rising airfares threaten to again make flying a service
for the affluent.

Airfares have risen this summer more than any year in the past quarter
century, new studies by airfare experts show. The studies, done by
Travelocity, FareCompare.com and Harrell Associates at USA TODAY's
request,
show that domestic fares this summer are up 12% to 15%, and on some
routes,
more than 200%.


"Consumers are already shell-shocked by higher prices, but their wallets
are
going to be hit harder than ever before on their next vacation or business
trip," says Rick Seaney, CEO of FareCompare.com, which tracks airfares for
consumers.

Airlines are raising fares to combat record jet-fuel prices, which have
nearly doubled during the past 12 months. The fares often include fuel
surcharges that can range from a few to hundreds of dollars, and a growing
number of tickets include restrictions that require fliers to buy further
in
advance or stay a number of days at a destination. Fliers also face an
escalating number of extra fees for roomy seats, checked bags, ticket
changes and other services.

For a family of four, a cross-country flight this summer may cost about
$1,000 more than last summer. In late July, for example, United Airlines'
cheapest non-stop round-trip coach fare for travel in mid-August between
San
Francisco and Washington was $580, or $2,320 for four people, according to
FareCompare.com. That's $920 more than the family would have paid United
on
that route last summer.

Higher airfares are causing vacationers and business travelers to cut back
on air travel, and raising many companies' travel costs.

Robert Yodice, of Cleveland, flew to Las Vegas 10 times last year, but
only
twice this year. He says he's cut back because the round-trip fare is at
least double the $200 to $300 he used to pay.

"With rising airfares, I've had to take a completely different approach to
my leisure travel," says Yodice, who owns a TV production company.
"There's
a lot more time invested in researching better fares, looking at alternate
airports and determining any potential savings from driving to an airport
that may not necessarily be closest to home."

Changing perspective on 'cheap'

An extreme example of the new price of air travel is found on the
Chicago-Minneapolis/St. Paul route. On July 10, US Airways' (LCC) cheapest
fare for travel at the end of the month was $406 a 276% increase on last
July's $108 fare, according to FareCompare.com. United Airlines' (UAUA)
cheapest fare was $376 a 382% increase on last July's $78. Northwest
Airlines' (NWA) cheapest fare was $140 up 79%.

United spokeswoman Robin Urbanski says the $78 fare last year was a
special
sale price in line with competitors' prices.

Such bargain airfares may be hard to find this year, but they haven't
disappeared and can often be found on airline websites.

Discount carrier Spirit offers $19 one-way fares on its website for August
travel between Fort Lauderdale and Tampa, Orlando or the Bahamas. Spirit
also has $89 fares from Boston to Fort Lauderdale.

Bigger airlines also offer some bargains. American Airlines' (AMR)
cheapest
round-trip coach fare last week for travel in September between Kansas
City
and West Palm Beach, Fla., with a stop in Dallas/Fort Worth, was $120,
plus
$42 in taxes and fees.

Besides Spirit, the lowest fares are usually found on routes where
Southwest
(LUV) flies, says airfare expert Tom Parsons of Bestfares.com, an online
ticket wholesaler that identifies fare bargains for consumers. Competing
airlines match Southwest's low fares, but they charge more fees for
checking
bags and other services, he says.

Low fares can also be found on routes flown by AirTran (AAI), JetBlue
(JBLU)
and Frontier, says Bob Harrell, head of Harrell Associates, a consulting
firm that focuses on airlines and fares.

Still, even low-fare airlines are raising prices. Southwest said recently
that its average fare in the second quarter was $114.48, up 8.4% from the
same period last year. JetBlue's average fare rose 13.1% to $138.13.

More increases are expected in the fall, when carriers say they will
reduce
seat capacity on many routes and stop flying some others. Some airlines
have
already reduced capacity up to 10%, and further cuts up to 15% are
planned for the fall.

Reductions are needed because rising prices mean less passenger demand,
American Airlines CEO Gerard Arpey said in a recent conference call
announcing the carrier's second-quarter financial results. American "has
initiated or participated in over 30 domestic fare and surcharge
increases"
this year, he said.

On 21 occasions this year, Seaney says, one of these six airlines
American, United, Delta (DAL), Continental (CAL), Northwest and US Airways

raised round-trip fares more than $10 on two-thirds of its routes, and 15
times the other airlines matched the fares. In 2007, an airline in that
group raised fares 23 times, and the other carriers matched 17 times.

If oil prices, which recently have fallen to the mid-$120s a barrel, rise
to
$150 a barrel, the cost of jet fuel could increase ticket prices to a
level
only the affluent could afford, says Seaney.

"While travelers are no doubt feeling pinched especially in light of
rising food and gasoline prices it is difficult to blame airlines for
raising prices in order to cover costs that are, by and large, beyond
their
control," says Darin Lee, an airline economics expert at LECG, a
consultant
in Cambridge, Mass.

Consumers have enjoyed cheap fares since the airline industry was
deregulated in 1978. Stiff competition has kept fares low, but it has also
driven many airlines out of business and forced others to struggle for
profitability. Faced with record fuel prices, airlines this year may lose
up
to $10 billion, says the Air Transport Association (ATA), an airline trade
group.

"We have had our fun; the party is over," Ray Neidl, an industry analyst
for
Calyon Securities, told Boeing executives last month. "We have had cheap
flights, and now it is time to pay the bill."

Leisure travelers have been hit with some of the biggest fare increases,
airfare studies show.

?The average cheapest coach fare in June and July was 16% more expensive
than last summer, according to Harrell Associates, which tracked published
fares each Monday from June 16-July 7 for six airlines' top
revenue-producing domestic routes. Those fares are highly restricted, with
advance-purchase and minimum-stay requirements and a penalty for itinerary
changes.

Combining those fares with the least expensive coach fares generally used
by
business travelers refundable fares booked no more than three days
before
departure with no minimum-stay requirements the average cheapest coach
fares this summer are 12% higher than last summer.

?FareCompare.com data examined 145 domestic routes, comparing airlines'
cheapest coach ticket prices on Thursday, July 10, with those of Thursday,
July 12, 2007. Of 937 fare listings, more than three-quarters showed a
fare
increase from a year earlier; 54% showed a fare increase of at least 20%.
The comparison excluded Southwest Airlines, which doesn't list its fares
in
all computer reservations systems.

?Travelocity, which sells millions of tickets annually, says domestic
tickets sold through May for travel between Memorial Day and Labor Day
averaged $366. That's a 15% increase on last summer's average of $318,
says
Travelocity editor Amy Ziff.

A 12% or 15% increase is huge compared with year-over-year pricing data
compiled by the ATA. Such a large increase has not happened since 1980,
when
the price of tickets sold rose 28% from 1979.

In 11 of 27 years since 1980, the price of tickets sold declined from the
previous year. Only two years had a price increase of more than 7%.

Trips not taken

Many vacationers are swallowing the fare increases, but others are
postponing trips, going to cheaper destinations or planning differently.

Tiffany West, of Tacoma, Wash., planned to go to Hawaii last May with her
husband, Jeff, and says she usually pays $500 to $700 for a round-trip
ticket. But the cheapest tickets were more than $1,000, so she postponed
the
trip until September, when a $525 fare was available.

Instead of paying the high airfares to London, Paris or Rome this summer,
many vacationers are booking less expensive or better-value flights to
Central America, South America or Asia, says Ziff. "They're starting to
look
at destinations like Buenos Aires, where you can have a relatively
European
experience and the dollar goes further," she says.

Some international fares are lower this summer, but they have high fuel
surcharges that make the total price higher than last summer, Parsons
says.

For example, he says, the cheapest round-trip fare on American Airlines
last
week for September travel between Dallas and London was $453, plus a $426
fuel surcharge, for a total of $879. Last summer, the fare was $476, plus
a
$130 fuel surcharge, or $606 total.

Restricting business travel

The airfare increases are also affecting business. Of 55 corporate travel
managers who responded to a mid-July survey by the Association of
Corporate
Travel Executives, more than half said rising airfares have caused their
companies to cut back on the number of business trips. The ACTE represents
2,500 travel managers and suppliers.

Higher airfares may add "tens of millions of dollars" to the travel
budgets
of Fortune 500 companies that spend at least $100 million on airfares per
year, says Hervé Sedky, a vice president at American Express Business
Travel.

Many business travelers buy tickets at the last minute and are unable to
take advantage of cheaper, advance-purchase fares. Those last-minute,
"walk-up" fares are also rising.

For a one-way New York-Los Angeles ticket on Tuesday, for example, Delta
Air
Lines' cheapest "Y" fare an industry classification for an unrestricted,
full-price coach fare cost $969, plus an $85 fuel surcharge, says
Parsons.
That's more than 40% higher than last year, when the price was $754 with
no
fuel surcharge.

A growing number of companies have begun requiring approval for all air
travel to company meetings, training sessions, conferences and
conventions,
says ACTE executive director Susan Gurley. Some companies are asking
employees to share hotel rooms on business trips.

The companies that have been hit hardest by airfare increases are those
with
a large volume of travel to Europe, Gurley says. Some have reported
hundreds
of thousands of dollars in increased travel expenses, and some no longer
allow employees to fly to Europe on business- or first-class tickets.

Small companies have also had to adjust.

Faith Varwig, who runs an aviation security consulting company in St.
Louis,
says the price of tickets to some cities has doubled or tripled. "We are
doing more teleconferencing and trying to reduce trips to client sites,"
she
says.

Wendy Desabaye runs a consulting business in Boston that plans corporate
meetings for companies based in New England. She says rising airfares have
caused companies to stop scheduling meetings outside the region.

"I've been in business 10 years, and I've planned more meetings this year
in
Boston than in the past 10 years," Desabaye says. "Instead of requesting
meetings in Hawaii and other faraway places, my clients are booking
meetings
where their employees can arrive by car or train."