Sitting on top of one of the World’s largest databases of current and historical airfares provides me with the luxury of doing all sorts of analysis. I review all sorts of incoming airfare information several times a day and am going to start sharing some that with you — here in this blog and also in our new deals section deals.farecompare.com. This morning some increase activity passed over my radar screen that I thought I would take a bit deeper look and share with you my observations:

There were tens of thousands of increased airfares this morning at the 10:00am domestic airfare distribution (one of 3 feeds today) and here is a run down of what happened and my take on it:

• Almost 74,000, domestic airfares increased across all airlines. The prices increased by $30, $40, $50 and $60 roundtrip. After eight (8) system-wide airfare increases since Labor Day that I have been tracking, my first inclination was … not again … and luckily it wasn’t so nefarious unless you have been procrastinating on buying holiday travel.
  • A couple of weeks ago some holiday airfare sales started kicking in, first on the low cost airlines and last week on the legacy airlines. These were for off peak airfares (outside those days everyone really wants to travel) and for those that were flexible had some great deals that we documented. It turns out all these increases were “raising” the prices of those off peak holiday fares by up to $60 roundtrip (most of these airfare are last minute you can buy up to the day of travel). What this tells me the airlines are sensing better demand — even on those normally off-peak holiday travel days and while still providing a “bit” of a good deal between certain cities — they are going to pocket a bit more change

• 9,000 airfares from the U.S. to Hawaii were hiked by just over $100 roundtrip across all of the airlines.
  • There has been quite a lot of activity in the past few months with increases and rollbacks on travel to Hawaii, but this increase is well beyond that activity. Hard to believe this increase doesn’t mean that demand is strong which is not unusual for snow birds trying to get some place warm this winter.

• 3,000 airfares increased from the U.S. to Canada across several airlines by just over $60 roundtrip.
  • There has been a ton of activity in pricing between the U.S. and Canada and unfortunately the price as well as the direction has been heading north sharply

I will continue to keep posting some of this interesting data as I see it — I know it might not mean much now, especially an increase, but I’ll be able to look back later in the history of the blog and hopefully provide some insight on what might happen in the future that might help you plan your trips a bit better.