Domestic holiday and winter airfare sales have become common place the past few weeks with almost every network and low cost airline joining in the spirit of the season:

• AirTran Sale
• Southwest Airlines Thanksgiving Sale
• Alaska Airlines Winter Escape Sale
• American Airlines Travel Airfare Sale
• Delta Air Lines Holiday Airfare Sale
• Northwest Airlines Holiday Sale
• United Airlines Holiday Fare Sale

Southwest Airlines just launched its 3^rd system wide airfare sale in a little over a week.

Southwest started with a 3-day winter sale last Tuesday, then ended the week with a Thanksgiving sale and today announced yet another 3-day winter sale for travel through the end of February:

• Purchase By: November 20^th, 2008
• First Travel: December 9^th, 2008
• Travel Complete: February 28^th, 2009
• Advance Purchase: 21 day
• Cheapest Days: Monday thru Thursday and Saturday
• Price Range: most prices $49 to $109 one-way (not including fees)

The sale includes the popular travel dates of Christmas, Inauguration and Presidents Day. See all the details here.

It is pretty obvious that there are more than a few empty seats hanging out this winter, even with the substantial seat cutbacks. I can’t recall three airfare sales from Southwest in a quarter let alone a week.

I analyzed our historical flight schedules early last week to get some detail on capacity cutbacks for some top cities for travel on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving (presented below):