Originally Posted by
dogloverjb
All in all I have found air fares to have gone up considerably on all airlines. Did I miss a huge increase in the price of gas?
No but you may have noticed the massive consolidation in the industry over the past decade. We've lost NW, CO, US, AT and AA and are down to three nationals. Southwest isn't playing the price spoiler anymore but their fares aren't transparent into other booking engines so that isn't helping competitiveness.
What you're left with otherwise are ULFCs Frontier and Spirit, and Valuejet reborn Allegiant (vacation flight operator).
It's just not as competitive as it used to be.