HAPPY 4TH OF JULY, EVERYONE!

Have a wonderful weekend, wherever you are.

From your Friends at RickSeaney.com and FareCompare.com

A ceremony is taking place near Dallas today, in the smallish town of Grapevine, Texas.

A dedication ceremony — to honor the 33 airline crew members who died on September 11, 2001.

They deserve to be remembered — because they were magnificent. By all accounts (from personal cell phone calls, from final communications with headquarters), these men and women were professional, compassionate and caring til the end. I’m sure they were scared. Who on the face of this planet would not be? But they did their jobs, and they did what they could to take care of their passengers. That is a quiet sort of heroism, an every day gallantry that we so rarely recognize or praise — until a day like September 11th.

I think those lost crew members would have loved their memorial… not because of the beautiful sculpture that is its focal point…but because it was built by those who cherished them, and miss them every day. It began with a determined American flight attendant named Valerie Thompson who came up with the idea, and she was soon joined by many in the aviation community — unpaid volunteers, every one of them — including pilots and flight attendants who fly in and out of DFW and call little Grapevine home.

But it wasn’t just the aviation community. People with no connection to any airline, people who never even learned the names of the dead crew members felt a need to honor them, and they began sending in what they could, a dollar at a time. It is moving to learn that most of the money for the memorial came from these small donations, whatever people could spare, until finally there was enough.

And so they built their memorial. And we will not forget.

American airlines is going to be laying off some 6,840 workers by the end of the year.

But American isn’t the only airline cutting back and no job seems to be safe (witness United’s recent announcement that they’ll be furloughing nearly 1,000 pilots.)

Executives are getting hit as well. Midwest Airlines CEO Timothy Hoeksema announced this week that his employees can expect pay cuts.

The biggest cut at Midwest? His own. CEO Hoeksema’s pay will be slashed by 40%.

UPDATE 1 : America, Continental and Delta have matched this hike

UPDATE 2 : Northwest joins the match

Well, before the paint could dry on the 20^th attempted airfare hike of 2008 (initiated late last week), United decided to kick off the long holiday weekend by firing out the 21^st attempted airfare increase of the year.

Last night — at 8:00pm EDT — United hiked airfares by $20 to $40 roundtrip (mostly $20) across the bulk of its route system. I should note that, this year, United has not been bashful about test firing increases — since they’ve initiated 10 of the past 20 attempts of the year.

Yesterday was a very volatile airfare filing day — before United’s move, Delta raised prices on dozens of smaller cities by $10 to $20 - not enough to be considered a full-blown attempted hike but possibly the trigger for United’s increases.

More on “unusual activity” going on — plus I have some advice for you on WHEN TO BUY TICKETS — if you’ll just keep reading.

Do you have any idea what the airlines say about size and weight restrictions for carry-on bags?

If you’re like most of us, you have no clue. When it comes time to pack, you probably just grab a bag, stuff it to the gills and try to shove it into that overhead bin.

DO NOT try that now. But DO check out our Airline Carry-on Baggage Chart.

You see, the airlines — especially American, United and US Airways, the ones with new first checked-bag fees — are now enforcing their size and weight restrictions for carry-ons. And why not? It’s only fair. If you pay to check a big bag, why should some dim-bulb get away with paying zip for a grossly distended “little” bag?

So how’s it working out? Well, we talked to the airlines — keep reading and we’ll tell you what they said — then take our BAGGAGE QUIZ.

American Airlines has sent a so-called WARN letter to 900 of its flight attendants, in effect notifying them that they could be out of a job by the end of August.

Such a letter (WARN is an acronym for “Worker Adjustment Retraining Notification Act”) is a federal requirement if layoffs are possible — and American has already said that employee reductions are expected.

For what it’s worth (not much, probably), United pilots can sympathize — last month that carrier announced its plans to “furlough” 950 pilots.

What does the future hold for air travelers? Will we have flying cars? Digital customer service reps? Roller Ball? Will air travel be reserved only for the wealthy?

I take a look at some possible future air travel scenarios in my latest ABC Column. Some might seem like they’re straight out of a Hollywood blockbuster, but they might be coming sooner than you think.

Read the column and see what the future holds.

Analysts at Morgan Stanley don’t think so — yet. You see for people picking stocks catching them at the bottom is the “holy grail” and evidently it is not quite there yet.

The bottom would be when all @#$% breaks loose.

Morgan Stanley notes that Continental’s June revenue (per seat mile flown) only grew 4.5% compared to last June and was not as good as May (up 7.2% compared to last year).

They say revenue needs to be closer to 20% growth to make the airlines whole with fuel — which in theory should raise ticket prices by another 15% or so — so be prepared for more increases (20 attempts this year and likely to be more).

The idea of an airline ticket tax holiday is being raised again and again in recent days, but I told you all about it about couple of months ago in one of my ABCNews.com columns.

I’m all for both winning: you (and me) AND the airlines. But in the meantime, it seems to be the government that’s winning in the face of airline woes.

It’s all about the fuel. And taxes. And, as I told CNN — last year alone, the government and airport authorities collected an estimated $14 billion (yes, billion) in airline ticket taxes, and this year it is likely to be much, much more.

I’ve asked this question before and I’ll ask it again: “Where is the money going, and why isn’t air travel any easier after collecting billions and billions of dollars?”

Time for a tax holiday, so please…keep reading.

Amsterdam

London

Paris

Frankfurt

Average

$ 330

$ 302 - $426

$ 330

$ 200

$ 287

$ 330

$ 302 - $ 426

$ 330

$ 200

$ 287

$ 330

$ 330

$ 330

$ 330

$ 330

$ 370

$ 302 - $ 426

$ 442 - $ 496

$ 372

$ 371

$ 488

$ 418 - $4 88

$ 488

$ 488

$ 330

$ 302 - $ 426

$ 330

$ 200

$ 287

$ 330

$ 302 - $ 426

$ 330

$ 200

$ 287

$ 240

$ 240

$ 240

$ 240

$ 240

$ 330

$ 330

$ 330

$ 330

$ 330

$ 330

$ 302 - $ 426

$ 330

$ 200

$ 287

$ 328

$ 200 - $ 264

$ 200 - $ 264

$ 200

$ 264

$ 310

$ 310

$ 370 - $ 430

$ 350

$ 323

$ 330

$ 330

$ 330

$ 330

$ 330

$ 330

$ 302 - $ 426

$ 330

$ 200

$ 287

$ 340

$ 340

$ 340

$ 340

$ 340

$ 360

$ 360

$ 390

$ 310

$ 355

$ 330

$ 302 - $ 426

$ 330

$ 200

$ 287

$ 330

$ 302 - $ 426

$ 330

$ 200

$ 287

$ 604

$ 302 - $ 426

$ 200

$ 402

European Average

$ 319

I thought I’d give you the latest run-down on the increasing cost of fuel surcharges.

Below are surcharges on flights from the U.S. to Tokyo.

Remember, these are “fuel surcharges costs” only. Taxes and fees will add another $110 to $180 per roundtrip — and that’s before we add the actual cost of the ticket!

U.S. - TOKYO FUEL SURCHARGES

I have just put together a handy “Airline Carry-on Baggage Chart” that you can access by clicking here, or just look to the left — it’s in the same column as my constantly updated “U.S. Domestic Airline Fee Chart”.

What’s great about the Carry-on Baggage chart is, you’ll know BEFORE you fly exactly how big a bag you can bring aboard your airline, and what the weight limitations are (if any).

You see, the baggage police are out in force — examining the sizes of carry-on bags as they haven’t done in years — and this is because they expect more of us will resort to carry-ons, because of new fees for checking bags.

Check out this new chart — it’s just one more tool that I hope will ease some of the frustration of flying.

Update: It appears Continental made an airfare filing mistake this morning at 10am and corrected it at 12:30pm …

I told you airfares were volatile — and Continental is now proving my point.

The carrier has “changed its mind” about bailing out of the $40 airfare hike, and has reinstated the increase — but only at the $40 roundtrip level (this had been a $20 to $40 increase).

We have seen this behavior in the past with fuel surcharges — but it is rare that we see a wholesale change in airfares in back-to-back airfare distributions (U.S. Domestic airfares are distributed at 10:00am EDT, 12:30pm EDT and 8:00pm EDT weekdays, 5:00pm EDT on weekends).

IMPORTANT NOTE: Continental travelers planning future travel have about a 2 hour window to book at the rolled back level as these new reinstated higher airfares will hit the reservation systems at approximately 3:00pm EDT.

This morning, Continental Airlines rolled back the bulk of its $20 to $40 roundtrip increase; this latest fare hike was initiated last Thursday by Southwest.

Note: every time Continental has rolled back (or not participated) in an airfare hike, it has spelled the death of that hike.

What makes this turnabout especially unusual is the fact that it was initiated by Southwest, and the legacy airlines took this rare opportunity to quickly double-up and hike fares by up to $40 roundtrip.

Over the weekend there were some signs of softening by other legacy airlines as they began to tinker with some rollbacks in the lower end of the increase ($20 roundtrip) - some of which was related to a variety of July 4^th holiday weekend sales.

Airline ticket prices are going to be highly volatile in the coming weeks and months as airlines search for just the right mix of ticket price, add-on fees and flight cutbacks to stem the flow of red ink caused by record high fuel prices. Air travel consumers should be aware of this volatility and take advantage of down swings - like the one most likely to occur later today — as other legacy airlines are apt to rollback in the wake of Continental.

In the past week, legacy airlines (along with Southwest) have changed their airfares significantly across the country. Most of these airline ticket changes are being hiked based on travel departure date and are timed to coincide with reductions in flights with the intent to keep planes packed.

There are quite a few super cheap last minute July 4th tickets (some thru the 10th of July) running between dozens of cities (meant to top off those already packed planes).

After the 4th — prices jump a bit, but are still much less than airline tickets departing in early November (or, starting right around Halloween), where prices jump dramatically.

If you want to travel cheap in the next few months, buy airline tickets in these sweet spots — and if you want to have a decent price on holiday seats, definitely start shopping now — these premium seats are more likely to go up in price the coming weeks and months (unless you think oil is coming down…)

Yes, it sure is.

Then, the Dallas Morning News had a report called “Airlines have lost much of their market value” but this story dug deep, and included such nuggets as the 10 largest airlines have lost more than $23 billion in value, and that while Southwest dropped 12% in market value, the other 9 carriers dropped 73%.

Unfortunately, nothing to chuckle about in this story.

It appears that the 20^th attempted airfare hike this year is going to sail through without any issues as tonight Northwest Airlines and US Airways completed the matching of the other 4 legacy airlines (American, Continental, Delta & United) by raising prices $20 to $40 roundtrip across the bulk of their respective route systems.

Southwest Airlines initiated the 20^th attempted airfare hike of 2008 Thursday by raising fares by $10 - $20 roundtrip for travel starting 2^nd of November.

The legacy airlines took this rare opportunity to not only match Southwest but to “double-up” on the hike, raising most routes by$40 roundtrip.

As usual the legacy airlines tiptoed around most Southwest overlapping routes to stay competitive.

I do not expect to see the same torrid pace of airfare hikes in the latter half of 2008 as the first - at the current pace we would end up with 40 attempted airfare hikes this year (we had 23 attempts in 2007).

Many airlines have a plethora of new “fee charges” which will help blunt some of the rising cost of fuel for the rest of the year — but all bets are off if oil “travels” through $160 a barrel and beyond.

Catch the 2008 Airfare Hike Timeline Here.

ATTENTION VACATIONERS!

Early this year, my parents found some cheap airfare (those were the days!), and a great bargain on a cruise, so they happily headed off to the Caribbean.

But while out to sea, their water heater back home began self-destructing. If not for an alert neighbor (who noticed water gushing out the door), the damage could have been worse than it was.

So I came up with The Essential “Going-Out-of-Town” Checklist — for all out-of-town travelers — and the loved ones they leave behind. Keep reading…

The airlines keep on watering-down the loyalty programs.

Latest case in point: Delta. I just received an email from the head of the carrier’s SkyMiles program — they are trying something new:

Delta is adding fuel surcharges to SkyMiles “Award Travel”.

• $25 for Award Travel between the 50 states and Canada
• $50 for Award Travel between the 50 states/Canada and all international

Let’s see: if you’re checking a couple of bags, you’re already paying an extra $25 one-way, as well as the $25 to $50 fuel surcharge, and that’s IF you can find a flight to redeem it on (good luck with destinations like Las Vegas and Orlando, and Hawaii is already a total zoo).

Delta, is THIS what you want to do to your best customers?

Now we know things are really bad in the airline industry: it’s attracted the notice of gossip website Perezhilton.

If you’re not familiar with it, Perezhilton is one of the internet’s premier celebrity/pop-culture sites (often ranked in the top 20 blogs by Technorati — and that’s out of millions of sites).

Anyway, today Perezhilton featured a post titled, “We Must Avert This Disaster” which includes a link to a Yahoo news report about a possible collapse of the aviation system.

Maybe it won’t get quite the attention his posts on Madonna or Britney Spears get, but it shows that everyone is concerned about the future of our airlines. And with good reason.

We saw this coming; oil hit $140 a barrel for the first time ever today.

It dropped slightly by the end of the day — settling down at $139.64 — still a record.

Analysts are explaining the prices by pointing to reports that Libya may cut production, and, an OPEC official said crude might soar to $170 this summer.

Wow.

Looks like we may be right on target for a prediction by Morgan Stanley that oil could go to $150 a barrel by the 4^th of July.

Southwest Airlines is now taking reservations thru early January (was 30th October until today). It wont be long until overlapping routes on other airlines drop for travel after end of October.

The next few days will be the best of the year to start shopping for holiday travel.

I’ll be posting more details as the legacy airlines and other low cost airlines drop their prices — enjoy!

Apparently, the summer tourist season is not looking good in China — despite the Olympic Games.

According to an AP report (via MSNBC), a lot of Beijing’s 4-star hotels are just 44% booked; not good news for a country that’s just spent $40 billion on venues and infrastructure for the hordes of tourists they expected.

Why are the tourists staying away?

Disappointed businessmen and women there cite a host of reasons: tightened visa rules, pollution, and last month’s earthquake that killed tens of thousands of people.

And it’s not just Olympic fans staying away; a Chinese travel agency rep says, the regular tourists aren’t coming because hotel and transportation prices jumped in anticipation of — the Olympics.