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.

Did you know, that there are more than 10,000 private jets in the U.S.?

If you’re on one now, I’m delighted for you; but the Los Angeles Times quotes some new reports that claim you’re not paying your fair share toward aviation safety.

Some highlights:

• A little over $2 billion of $7 billion in federal funds for airport improvements was used to fix up airports that mostly serve private jets (i.e., Aspen)
• Private plane passengers avoid the 7.5% ticket tax for ATC services

Interestingly, the authors of these studies don’t seem to like so-called “rich people” very much — as you’ll see if you keep reading.

Turns out, a lot of airlines DO seem to be wasting fuel — with our unwitting collusion.

It has to do with the widening “ticket price gap” between non-stop fares and flights with at least one stop: the airlines are charging more and more for their “premium” flights, which are — direct flights.

So, more and more of us are opting to endure the “stops”. But those flights, of course, have more take-offs and landings — which use more fuel. See where this is going?

Take a look at the column — I have some ideas on how we can all start making the most of jet fuel.

Our thanks to Skytalk for this American Airlines update:

American has already announced it will close operations in Oakland, CA and London Stansted, but they’ve added Barranquilla, Colombia to the “closing” list as well.

And American Eagle (in addition to shutting down Samana, Dominican Republic) is ending operations here:

The earlier announced closures will occur in September; the newest ones will take place in November.

Also, Chicago and Dallas/Ft. Worth will see double-digit flight reductions by American. At LaGuardia, American is dropping 5 flights (and 37 American Eagle departures). Click here for all the details.

You know all about the so-called “bad” airline fees — likethe upcoming $2 Cokes on US Airways (and see all those fees in my handy Domestic Airline Fee Chart).

But as I’ve also told you, a “good” airline fee is on the horizon — good because it’s a fee for a NEW service, not something we used to get for free — I’m talking about WiFi.

American Airlines is testing its WiFi right now; later this year, expect to pay about $10 to $13 for WiFi per flight. And as gadling.com pointed out, this is one fee a lot of us won’t mind paying.

You Road Warriors out there — does this work for you?

This was all over the internet this morning: A mother and toddler were removed from an American Eagle flight about to take off from Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina.

The 2 year old boy, who is autistic, was clearly not happy; at one point, in his mother’s own words, the child had a meltdown and “was on the floor, rolling around.” The mother, who told the flight crew about the boy’s autism said they made the situation worse by yelling at the child and yanking his seatbelt.

We contacted American spokesman Tim Wagner who gave us some answers — keep reading.

We’ve seen airlines fold this year, and we’ve heard a lot of talk about airlines merging.

But one brand seems to keep rolling merrily along. Richard Branson’s Virgin.

The latest report (from Reuters) says the British billionaire is in talks with Brazilians about starting an airline there.

According to Sir Richard, Brazil is a “dynamic” market, and “we haven’t paid enough attention to it”. Talks are ongoing, he said, but expect an announcement soon.

Tell us, what’s next?

Virgin…World?

I was pulling some information from one of our databases to compare airfares this year vs. last and it struck me to give Denver a try seeing that Southwest has aggressively “moved into” the neighborhood.

The term “Southwest Effect” was coined in the early 90’s and refers to the increase in passengers in a city when a low cost airline enters into a city with cheaper airfares than the historical average.

With most cities up steeply over the last year (mainly due to fuel) my guess was that passengers based in Denver were going to be big winners — you be the judge …

Found this two-paragraph story from Breitbart, and thought I might as well just reprint it — in all its glorious terseness:

“Oil prices will not come down,’ OPEC president Chakib Khelil said Tuesday, assuring that the oil cartel has already done what it can on the matter.”

“‘OPEC has already done what OPEC can do and prices will not come down,’ Khelil told journalists as he arrived for a meeting with EU energy officials in Brussels.”

Okay, on to Plan B. We don’t have one? Time to get to work…

Like many airlines, United announced it will cut capacity — cutting back on the number of flights and grounding planes — which means, they don’t need all their pilots, so they’re furloughing 950 of them (that’s 15%).

That’s furloughed, not fired. Or is it? In theory, when times get better, they could return — just like those pilots furloughed after 9/11 — most of whom returned by last summer. Let’s see, that was 6 years later.

Ever been out of work for 6 years? Or had to find a brand new profession? Clearly, most of the affected United pilots (whose furloughs will begin in July and continue through next year) won’t be able to find jobs at other airlines — they’re in the same boat as United.

And how many will have hit retirement age — 65 — by the time United calls them back to work?

A very sad business.

Okay, not great news but not terrible news for the airlines, not in the latest “Harris Interactive Reputation Quotient” survey, anyway.

This survey has consumers name the “60 most visible companies” then rate each firm according to “corporate reputation”. Only one airline was featured — Northwest — and it was ranked near the bottom.

On the other hand, just being named one of the “60 most visible companies” in the U.S. is pretty good, I think. Plus, it ranked higher than Citgo Oil and Halliburton.

Top ranked? Our old friend Google.