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Over the weekend the three remaining legacy airlines matched the $40 roundtrip fuel surcharge increase (doubled from $20 roundtrip earlier in the week). American Airlines and US Airways matched late Friday evening and United Airlines matched Saturday afternoon. The scope of this fuel surcharge increase — while major (66+% of each legacy airlines respective route system) — is slightly below the aggressive matching of the prior two weeks. |
This slightly less aggressive approach may be an attempt to give this airfare increase a greater chance of “sticking” - the next two days are crucial for the legacy airlines as rollbacks on Monday and Tuesday have unraveled the last two fuel surcharge increase attempts in as many weeks.
Legacy airlines continue to be wary of increasing fuel surcharges on competitive lower cost airline markets as well as steering away from a few targeted off-peak leisure sale airfares (Tuesday, Wednesday & Saturday).
Assuming that this increase “sticks” - it probably won’t be the last - we are likely to see more hikes in the very near future as there has been no slow down on airfare increase attempts with over 2 “sticky” increases per month since Labor Day 2007 (closely tracking the run up in fuel prices since late summer).
I will update if/when significant airline activity occurs related to this most recent fuel surcharge increase attempt.
What are some markets that are affected? Is this increase part of the fare or added as a tax at the end of the transaction?
Comment by bob — January 28, 2008 @ 1:23 pm
Bob, fuel surcharges are added to the base airfare and then the 7.5% sales tax is applied.
Basically ticket prices have gone up on most routes by $20 from ($20 fuel surcharge to $40 fuel surcharge) this weekend.
Comment by Rick Seaney — January 30, 2008 @ 3:09 pm