I’ve said it before, but let me say this again:

If you are going to be flying to a vacation spot this summer, get your tickets now!

Anyone who’s looked at this blog lately, knows that fuel prices are rising almost on a weekly basis.

Be smart, and “hedge” the fuel surcharge on your airline ticket price; buy now.

As of this morning, all the legacy carriers were onboard with the $20 roundtrip increase initiated by Delta earlier this week.

This increase was across the bulk of the airlines’ respective route systems.

What this means for you and me?

Well, it means the fuel surcharge now stands at $130 roundtrip for many of the city pairs across the country (especially those city pairs that do not overlap with a low cost airline’s route).

NEW UPDATE (AS OF 5-9-08): ALL LEGACY CARRIERS NOW MATCH HIKE!

Last night, Delta Air Lines initiated the 15^th attempted domestic airfare increase of 2008 by raising its fuel surcharge by an additional $20 roundtrip; this surcharge affects the bulk of its route system.

The new total fuel surcharge (on numerous Delta city-pairs) is now up to a record $130 roundtrip.

Even worse, this means the total fuel surcharge combined with taxes and fees costs more than the actual base airfare on several short-haul domestic flights.

Let’s dig a little deeper, shall we? Keep reading…

The folks at Fox Business News (Liz Claman and David Asman) will be interviewing me today at about 2pm Eastern time.

They’ll be asking about how the airlines (and passengers!) will be handling the excruciatingly high fuel costs.

If you have the time, listen in, and please comment on this.

In the wee hours this morning Continental Airlines filed a change to their trans-Atlantic international fuel surcharge - raising it by $40 roundtrip to $270 roundtrip.

Typical taxes and fees on a European roundtrip are approximately $120, which means that before you even start to pay for airfare on any European trip (including those off-season winter prices) you are going to be looking at just shy of $400 before the the airlines (in this case Continental) even starts to charge for airfare. For summer international travel — prices will be well above $1200 out-the-door for roundtrips to Europe .. Ouch!

Yesterday Delta Airlines began the 14^th attempted domestic airfare hike which will affect the bulk of its route system (that’s over 13,000 city-pairs). United Airlines joined yesterday, and American came onboard today.

The increase - in the form of a fuel surcharge - is from $10 to $40 roundtrip, depending on the type of airfare and city-pair.

This means, travel between some city-pairs will include a whopping $110 roundtrip fuel surcharge. In comparison, the average transatlantic fuel surcharge is about $230 roundtrip.

It appears that Delta is poised to make its CEO’s call for a 15-20% airfare increase (to offset fuel prices) a grim reality in the coming the weeks. I’ll explain, if you keep reading.

UPDATE: As of 4-26-08, ALL the legacy airlines matched.

Our proprietary software shows that Continental Airlines matched the United initiated increase of 2% to 5% ($6 to $80 roundtrip) across the bulk of its route system.

Additionally US Airways has matched across approximately 35% of its route system from 2% to 4%.

In other minor airfare activity:

• American continued to firm up matching in markets it left out last night
• Frontier partially matched on some of their routes
• Northwest has some minor increase matching (less than 10% of their routes)

This leaves Northwest, who has typically been one of the last to match in past increases attempts — along with a major portion of the US Airways route system - yet to match.

I would expect this matching to occur on both airlines later tonight or over the weekend.

Last night at 8:00pm EDT both American and Delta matched the increase of $4 to $70 roundtrip initiated by United earlier in the afternoon.

This leaves only three legacy network airlines — Northwest, US Airways and Continental — yet to match their next chance to match will be at 10am EDT Friday.

United also showed some minor increase activity — firming up those few city pairs that were left out of initial increase at noon yesterday.

Both American Airlines and Delta Air Lines matched the increase by increasing airfares from 2% to 5% across the bulk of their respective route systems.

This increase attempt is now 15% short of the 20% called on by the Delta CEO earlier this week — he estimated it would require 15-20% in airfare hikes to make the airlines whole at $120 barrel oil.

These new priceswent into effect shortly after midnight EDT. Again, I cannot stress enough that consumers should lock in their summer airline travel as quickly as possible, especially on the remaining 3 legacy airlines that have yet to match as they are likely to match today and consumers who act quickly (before noon Friday) can save up to $70 roundtrip.

At noon today, United Airlines initiated the 13th attempted domestic airfare hike of 2008 - and note that, 8 of the previous 12 were widely successful.

I immediately broke this story, and it quickly appeared in media reports.

Details on the price hike: United raised airfares across the bulk of its domestic route system in a laddered fashion from $4 to $60 roundtrip for leisure travelers in over 5,500 city-pairs, and from $4 to $70 for business travelers in over 9,000 city-pairs.

The AP reports that United blames this 3% to 5% hike on, what else: soaring fuel costs.

You won’t have to travel too far to get hit with a substantial increase; keep reading for more on that.

Yesterday, April 22, I reported that Delta CEO Richard Anderson said, “An airline ticket has got to reflect the full cost of fuel.” Then he got down to specifics:

Domestic airlines need to raise fares by 15% to 20% (and that’s just to break even).

I’ve decided to monitor this situation closely, to see if Delta and other airlines perhaps really do raise the price of their airline tickets by 20%; I want to see if (and when) this prediction comes true.

So stay tuned.

A frightening quote from the CEO of Delta Airlines is reported by the Associated Press today: Richard Anderson told reporters that domestic airlines need to raise fares by 15% to 20%.

He added, “An airline ticket has got to reflect the full cost of fuel.” Right now, airline tickets don’t; you’ll see what I mean when you check out the chart detailing the airlines’ losses (see following page). Simply put, the fuel prices are killing them.

For those of you keeping score, there have been 12 attempted airfare hikes so far this year (8 widely successful), and now Delta’s CEO is telling us, there will be more. But what else can they do? According to Northwest’s CEO, cost-cutting measures “have largely been exhausted.”

My recommendation: if you’re traveling this summer, buy those tickets now, to lock-in the airfare price before it goes higher. And for more on the airlines’ latest losses, click here.

As some of you know, Southwest does not file their airfares publicly; but I was curious as whether the largest U.S. carrier (in terms of domestic passengers) had joined in the latest airfare increase and the other seven successful legacy airline increases this year. This is what I learned, directly from a Southwest representative:

“On April 10, we followed an increase by United with a very modest, mileage-based increase of from $2 each way for short haul, $4 each way for medium haul, and $6 each way for long haul.”

“Last night, we instituted a fare increase that takes effect for travel beginning June 13: it ranges from $3 - $5 one-way for short haul; $8 one-way for medium haul, and $10 one-way for long haul.”

Yes, Southwest has fuel hedges in place, but as the rep put it, “no airline is immune to astronomical $115/barrel oil.”

Starting early Wed., the legacy carriers began to match the United Airlines fuel surcharge increase of an additional $10-$20 roundtrip initiated late Tues.

IMPORTANT NOTE: This brings the domestic fuel surcharge for many markets to $70 roundtrip from its previous high of $50 roundtrip.

Here’s how the matching went (and in this order):

• US Airways matched only at the $20 roundtrip level
• Delta matched at the $10 and $20 roundtrip level
• Continental matched only at the $20 roundtrip level
• American matched only at the $20 roundtrip level
• Northwest just matched at 12:30 today

For more details, and my take on this…keep reading.

It didn’t take long for a few of the legacy airlines to begin matching the $4-$30 roundtrip airfare increase initiated by United Airlines late Wednesday evening.

As predicted, Delta Air Lines jumped in and matched at noon on Thursday along with Continental Airlines (which is usually slower to react). By last night, US Airways climbed aboard, and this morning, so did Northwest. And last of all, American.

New prices will go into effect on American’s reservation system at approximately 3:00pm EDT.

Some of the smaller carriers have raised their prices too, so keep reading.

Wednesday April 9, 2008 10:45pm CDT

After a brief 10-day respite from airfare hikes — in what can arguably be described as one of the worst 10-day periods in commercial aviation history — United Airlines tonight is attempting to hike airfares for the 11th time this year.

With the backdrop of failing airlines, congressional safety hearings, soaring fuel prices, unflattering consumer satisfaction studies and massive inspection related flight cancellations — United has seen fit to hike U.S. domestic airfares by as much as $30 roundtrip this evening across its entire route system.

Unlike the previous 2 failed attempts in the last weeks of March by Delta Air Lines of $10 roundtrip across the board — United has taken a different approach this week by increasing airfares from $4 to $30 roundtrip loosely based on mileage with deference to those routes that have significant lower cost airline competition. This technique of laddering several layers of increases has been previously successful in mid March when United was able to get the other 5 legacy airlines to significantly match a $4 to $50 roundtrip increase…

Good news for consumers — the Thursday evening “witching” hour for airfare hikes passed, with no system-wide airfare hikes.

Which got me to thinking, especially after an airline analyst showed me this recent statement about Northwest Airlines.

A portion of the statement, attributed to Northwest, says:

“In addition, for domestic routes, since Jan. 1, Northwest said it has participated in 11 attempts by carriers to increase fares to reflect rising fuel costs. However, most fares have been rolled back because some airlines failed to match, the company said.”

So fares didn’t go up much in 2008, huh?

Oh, Northwest; 4 Pinocchios for you! Keep reading, and I’ll explain.

For the first time this year a legacy airline got absolutely no takers on an attempted airfare hike.

Delta Air Lines rolled back their attempted airfare fuel surcharge increase of an additional $10 roundtrip (route system wide) - initiated Thursday — as no legacy airline budged to match them over the weekend.

The average domestic U.S. fuel surcharge continues to remain at $50 roundtrip…

We are now in uncharted waters.

There has never been a time since we began closely tracking airfares back in 2002 with so many attempted airfare hikes of this frequency or magnitude. Nothing to compare it to.

Now it’s Delta’s turn — again. The carrier tried and failed with a $10 airfare hike last week, but today it’s trying with a $10 roundtrip domestic fuel surcharge.

Look for this to affect 21,000 business airfares city-pairs (without 14 day advance purchase) and 15,000 city-pairs for leisure travel.

Last week, Delta upped its price by $10 roundtrip after joining in an earlier increase that raised prices as much as $50.

But this latest increase didn’t last; Delta rolled it back over the weekend, and today United (the last hold-out) did the same.

I guess we should be grateful for small favors.

Other increases have “stuck” — keep reading for more on that, and what affect it’s having on demand from us passengers.

This morning, United Airlines raised its prices, again — $10 per roundtrip.

Delta actually started it this week with a $10 roundtrip airfare hike on many of its flights (I told you about this yesterday); now, United has matched that attempted increase for business and leisure travelers to 12,000 of United’s city-pairs.

Will more airlines join in on this latest airfare increase? That would not be unusual, given that we’ve seen 4-consecutive weeks of increases.

I will keep you posted.

I was interviewed for a CBS Evening News story today. The subject: the recent airfare hikes, and how they will affect the flying public.

(In case you missed it, here’s a link to the story).

One of the things I mentioned in the interview, is that deals are getting harder to find — you may have to dig a little deeper for them — but they are still out there.

The main advice I give these days is, shop for airfare a little earlier (maybe, a lot earlier) than you’re used to.

Last night, Delta Air Lines added another $10 roundtrip increase to this past weekend’s increase of up to $50 roundtrip.

That first hefty hike was initiated by United, and then all the legacy carriers joined in.

But this latest increase from Delta, well, I am trying to think of a word other than “unprecedented” so I guess I’ll start using “remarkable.”

And that’s because, in 6- years of tracking airfares, I have never seen an airline fire out a system wide increase on anything but Thursday or Friday!

Keep reading…

Saw an interesting roundup of airline/fuel-related stories in USA Today; what really caught my eye was their use of the word “ominous” in the headline.

Various publications were quoted about airline CEO’s statements or hints of coming changes to deal with the situation, a situation I’ve been closely following right here in this very blog.

Some are suggesting pulling out of unprofitable markets; Delta has already done it. Click “more” for the details.

By Saturday night, it was official: Northwest had joined the other legacy carriers in the unprecedented $4 to $50 roundtrip increase (an increase initiated by United last Thursday).

If you’re keeping score, this is the 4^th increase by legacy airlines in as many weeks (but as you’ll see, a couple of airlines are “wavering” a bit).

And yes, it’s all about the high cost of jet fuel.

My predictions, and what we passengers can do, coming right up (just click “more”).