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.