This evening in the 8:00pm EST domestic U.S. airfare distribution the FareCompare.com proprietary airfare processing system noted significant system wide airfare increase matching activity by Delta Air Lines. Earlier today American Airlines raised its fuel surcharge to $40 roundtrip ($20 one-way) on the majority of it’s route system - this was on the heels of a failed attempt earlier in the week by the legacy airlines to raise fuel surcharges to $50 roundtrip ($25 one-way)…

This evening Delta Air Lines has matched American — on the bulk of its route system - raising their fuel surcharge to $40 roundtrip for both leisure and business air travelers.

Delta continues the trend of legacy airlines to “steer clear” of overlapping routes with lower cost airlines. A check of Delta’s hub cities (Atlanta, Cincinnati and Salt Lake) shows almost no increase activity on overlapping routes shared with “lower cost airlines” AirTran and Southwest.

While Delta has not initiated many increases in the past 6 months, they have almost always been the first to match as other legacy airlines have been floating an average of 2.5 (two and one-half) increases a month since Labor Day weekend 2007.

This American Airlines initiated increase attempt is the third (3^rd) in as many weeks of 2008. It will most likely be up to Continental to decide the fate of this increase as they were the first to pull out earlier this week on the attempted $50 roundtrip fuel surcharge increase by United late last week.

A comparison of the average airfare prices between the top 50 U.S. cities today versus this same time period in 2007 shows an increase of approximately 8 to 12 percent.

Airfare sales continue to trickle out week after week but are highly targeted at off-peak travel times frequented by only the most flexible of air travelers - airlines continue to charge hefty premiums for non-stops and popular flight days (Monday, Friday, Sunday) and times (morning and early afternoon).

There are 3 domestic U.S. airfare distributions on Friday — I will continue to update on any significant matching or rollback activity related to this attempted airfare increase.