The 20th attempted airfare hike this year is well on its way to sticking as both American and Continental joined United and Delta just after lunch today by matching across the bulk of their respective route systems — tacking on an additional $20 – $40 roundtrip.

Southwest Airlines was the original instigator of this airfare hike (at a much lower add-on amount of $10 – $20 roundtrip for travel starting 2-Nov) legacy airlines didnt let any grass grow under their feet as they quickly jumped on this rare opportunity to hike fares along with Southwest and onto their own route systems.

This leaves US Airways and Northwest, normally the slowest matchers on the sidelines — no doubt they will match by Monday morning.

American Airlines Matching Chart:

• Shows the average cheapest roundtrip American price for departure each of the next 40 weeks for American Airlines between all combinations of AA Top 50 cities (to/from each other) and also on Southwest (WN) Top 50 Cities routes.
• Average increase on Americans top routes $16 roundtrip
• Average American increase on Southwest top routes $4 roundtrip
• Averages are less than the increase most because of overlapping routes with Southwest are raised minimally or not at all
• Large gap between the average cheapest roundtrip American prices on their top routes vs. Southwest top routes shows how Southwest drives the cheapest price point down