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A frightening quote from the CEO of Delta Airlines is reported by the Associated Press today: Richard Anderson told reporters that domestic airlines need to raise fares by 15% to 20%. He added, “An airline ticket has got to reflect the full cost of fuel.” Right now, airline tickets don’t; you’ll see what I mean when you check out the chart detailing the airlines’ losses (see following page). Simply put, the fuel prices are killing them. For those of you keeping score, there have been 12 attempted airfare hikes so far this year (8 widely successful), and now Delta’s CEO is telling us, there will be more. But what else can they do? According to Northwest’s CEO, cost-cutting measures “have largely been exhausted.” My recommendation: if you’re traveling this summer, buy those tickets now, to lock-in the airfare price before it goes higher. And for more on the airlines’ latest losses, click here. |
One airline actually showed a profit: Southwest. For the rest (those who have reported earnings so far), well…there’s been nothing to report.
Here’s what we have so far, for the 1st quarter of 2008:
- Southwest Airlines - $34 million profit
- AMR (American Airlines) - $328 million loss
- Continental Airlines - $85 million loss
- UAL (United Airlines) - $542 million loss
- AirTran - $34.8 million loss
- JetBlue - $8 million loss
- Delta Air Lines - $274 million loss
Again, look for ticket prices to go UP and soon …
Thanks. This eases (most of) my anxiety about when to buy tickets for our two groups (one from MSP, one from MKE) for our late-summer trip to Alaska. We bit the bullet almost a week ago. It seemed the game of chicken I was playing wasn’t getting any more assuring, since the best prices on reasonable itineraries just kept getting further and further in the past.
Comment by Halibut-Harvesting Hal — April 23, 2008 @ 12:31 pm
Thanks for the heads up.
Comment by Sammie — April 23, 2008 @ 2:57 pm