May be off topic as yours may be a purely US oriented magazine, but the budget carriers in the UK are revolutionising things over there and now spreading their wings to the rest of Europe.....

Easyjet is the leader (with over 85% of all bookings made online, btw), but you can also add the likes of Ryanair, Go, Buzz.

Taking just one example, Edinburgh.....five years ago there were about 15 daily flights to London (two airports), now there are around 40 on at least 5 different carriers to 5 different London airports.....and the fares have come crashing down, often as low as STG19 one way off peak, not bad for a 400 mile flight !