Northwest Airlines is very tricky when it comes to filing airfares which must drive other airlines revenue management departments crazy — that along with consumers who try to find the elusive days that seats are released for these airfares.

Last night I got an alert from our system for a super low ball price from DFW-NYC.

Northwest filed a $98 roundtrip airfare betwen Dallas to New York (see the screen shot below).

Yes you read that right! This price is below the fuel surcharge on thousands of routes across the U.S. — but here is the catch …

A friend of mine recently took a trip on Northwest, and she is now a firm believer that “courtesy counts”. Here’s her story:

“While making my reservations, I got to the seat selection phase, and, as usual, there were plenty of seats you could pay extra for, but no other seats were available (at that time). This confused me, since in the past, there were always at least a couple of “free seats” to choose from, and I was getting a little worried — would I have to pay for a seat?”

Keep reading — here comes the payoff…

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.

Update: If you missed me on CNN, you can check out the video here.

I’m on CNN again today (12:10 EDT), talking about the Delta/Northwest merger.

One of the things I want to do is allay some fears about what this will mean to individual passengers.

I can say this: if you have tickets, don’t worry about it — they are still good — and so are your frequent flier miles.

If you see the broadcast, let me know what you think!

Update: It has been officially announced this evening see the AP story here

I guess I should say, watch this space.

Because, according to reports, a merger between Delta and Northwest is getting very close (though no one from either airline is commenting). We are hearing that an announcement could come today.

If the merger goes ahead, it will create the world’s largest airline — and possibly spur new merger agreements.

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.

The proposed merger between Northwest Airlines and Delta Air Lines is like something you might see in a celebrity gossip magazine. Are they together? Are they apart? Well, it depends on what week it is.

The latest news from the merger front is that Northwest Airlines and Delta Air Lines are back on. Pilots with both carriers have raised issues that have helped to stall merger talks, but now it seems the airlines might be willing to move forward without the full blessing of the pilots…

We seem to be hurtling toward a Delta-Northwest merger. What’s the rush? Here’s the inside story.

Some of Delta’s biggest shareholders just want it done: Delta creditors had earlier refused an offer to merge with US Airways, and the stock price dropped by a third. Now, says an airline industry analyst, the feeling is it’s time to make a deal, because unlike that popular TV show, there’s not going to be a last minute appearance by “The Banker” with a better offer.

Meanwhile, Northwest has problems because of its aging fleet. It needs to upgrade, but doesn’t have the cash. Merging can fix that.

But more than a few passengers are asking, “What’s your hurry?” Let me explain.

Delta Air Lines and Northwest Airlines have both matched the doubling of the fuel surcharge from $20 to $40 initiated by Continental Airlines late yesterday evening - leaving American, United and US Airways on the sidelines for the moment.

In the past several airfare increase attempts, Delta Air Lines has been quick to pull the matching trigger (almost always within half a day) where Northwest Airlines has usually been late to the party (one of the last to join in)…

Yesterday evening in the 5:00pm EST domestic U.S. airfare distribution the FareCompare.com proprietary airfare processing system noted significant system wide airfare increase matching activity along with some minor rollback activity.

US Airways matched the 50$ roundtrip fuel surcharge increase along with Continental Airlines who significantly matched the increase after light leisure airfare only matching Friday evening, leaving only Northwest Airlines as the lone holdout so far of the six legacy airlines - Northwest has only shown minor price decrease activity since Friday afternoon.