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Today Southwest launched one of the most unusual system-wide airfare sales we have tracked in the past five years.
The two-day Southwest Fall Sale starts today and touches nearly all the combination’s of their 68-city route map, for travel departing this fall – Sept. 9 thru Nov. 18 (blackout Friday/Sunday).
The pricing scheme is back to the future — based on one-way distance in miles at three different price levels:
- $30 one-way for all routes up to 400 miles (such as, Seattle to Boise, 398 miles)
- $60 one-way for all routes between 400 and 750 miles (Philadelphia to Jacksonville, 742 miles)
- $90 one-way for all routes over 750 miles (Las Vegas to Providence, 2357 miles)
A review of the airfare filing shows the following number of routes (city pairs) at the different price levels:
- 166 routes (city pairs) at $30 one-way
- 481 routes (city pairs) at $60 one-way
- 1385 routes (city pairs) at $90 one-way
In the past several weeks, we’ve seen system-wide domestic airfare sales almost completely dry up – after almost 6 months of continuous discounting by all the domestic U.S. airlines. Tonight, however, low-cost carriers AirTran and Frontier filed summer/fall sales along with Southwest.
Summer prices, which are not included in this sale, are tracking well below last summer’s prices – when oil crested at over $145 a barrel.
I expect to see significant matching by the major legacy airlines, even for this modest purchase period of 2-days. And this sale is certainly going to kick off the historically slow fall travel season which has been targeted recently for more seat cutbacks by several airlines.
The meaning of this sale: it is one indication that airlines are by no means out of the woods yet – as oil prices remain volatile and demand precarious.
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WHY IS PROVIDENCE RI TO LAS VEGAS NEVER ON SALE WITH SOUTHWEST AIR
David,
I found Providence to Las Vegas for $222 roundtrip total – and that’s a GREAT deal! Here’s how I did it.
Just now, I used FareCompare’s Deal Finder, and here’s the link: http://www.farecompare.com/dealfinder/
I put in September, because that’s when the travel period starts for the Southwest sale (and all the airlines are following its lead), and it took me to this calendar page where you will see lots of great fares (and this is the link to the calendar page: http://www.farecompare.com/avadeals/a-d4ae869d74d6e90ff4906700af43a6de1b0ceab0161e88e7f442aac94a3a9e07965ccfcd24c5805c00c3b5b2ad1743fa5708205f27749a2a075515e2692aa37c.html )
When you see a great deal like this, grab it; it will not last.
Hope this helps,
Rick
Will Southwest ever come to pns or vps??