Thanks...

Another trick: Goto your Widgets folder and copy and paste the Fare Compare Widget. You can create as many widgets as you want as long as they all have different names.

Open the widgets you just created using the Widget Engine. You can then customize each widget on your desktop to show different airlines, class of service, etc, destinations, etc.

Bottom line -- these trends with rising gas prices and interest rates have been going on for some time now -- the last few years with gas, more recently with interest rates -- AND THERE HAS BEEN NO ADVERSE SPENDING IMPACT. Of course, you are free to have your own hypothesis, but if you were making a call on the consumer in the stock market based on this over the past few years, you'd have been WRONG, except perhaps for low-end companies who are exposed to consumers that really are pinched by the rising gas prices, namely Wal-Mart and the dollar stores. Does that mean the consumer won't eventually roll over? No, but there's a lot of data to suggest that the consumer WANTS to spend money, be it on big screen TVs or travel, and by golly, they are going to spend the money. Yes, they bit*h and moan about the gas, but it isn't stopping them from spending. They are just saving less -- yes, the negative savings rate of late has been an important boon to spending, and given all the wealth accumulation over the past few years from the stock market, housing market, etc., that can persist for some time.

What does this mean? -- that CO thinks it can get away with raising fares. Loads are strong, so why not extract some extra $. Generally, given the choice between an extra $ of revenue from more passengers or an extra $ of revenue from higher fares, I'm sure CO would rather have the higher fares, as more passengers means more expenses, whereas higher fares flow straight through to the bottom line. Of course they have to take the supply-demand-pricing balance into consideration, but they have so much flexibility on that front.

I might be biased but I don't hold it against the airlines for frantically raising prices until they are no longer selling seats at a loss (5 years of that takes a long time to bounce back from). Especially since they have aggressively tried to cut costs in every other aspect. The only cost left, that's mostly out of their control, is fuel and the only way to make up for it is to pass it on to the consumer. Isn't that the way any other big business operates? Cost of materials/supplies goes up, price goes up.

Now if they were operating at billions of dollars of profits, well I would squawk at an arbitrary price raise. As for now, I think they are finally just getting their nostrils above the water.

Oh, and don't get me wrong. I'm a cheap mofo.

WOW!!!! Good thing I booked my trips to the Bucs games last week....

10/21 EWR-TPA $237 now $383
11/04 EWR-TPA $256 now $407
12/09 EWR-TPA $208 now $212

Total difference $301.00!!!!!!!!!

You miss the entire point. If one of the major components of your cost tripled and quadupled over the past few years, wouldn't you try to recover those costs?? or would you prefer the government bail out another multi $billion company?? There is no airline on the planet that has a chance to make a profit with $73 oil, and last years air fares.
Maybe you should go to your Company and have them lower prices and ask suppliers to raise prices and see how you like your 30-50% decrease in pay because of it. USAir, Delta and NW on the edge of extinction along with the hopeless United. Imagine what fares will be with only SW, CO and American the only ones to reule the skies here

It seems that you're missing the point. The price is market driven. They will charge what the market will bear. Whether oil is at $73 or $23, the fare is not based on oil prices, it's based on what the market will pay.

All valid points, but I still don't think these relatively minor rationales merit spending 3x or 4x the amount for a ticket. It's not that big a deal to fly out of JFK vs. EWR, particularly since much of the airports' clientele is Manhattan-centric. As for EUAs, I think we all know they're rare for anyone other than PLTs on the heaviest-traffic business routes, so if your odds of getting stuck in CO coach are 90-95%, why not go with jetBlue and its 4-5 extra inches of legroom and TVs in the seat, particularly if the fare is 1/3 the amount?

For those of us who live in places like central Jersey JFK isn't a real option, especially for flying a short distance such as BOS. It's real easy to make the decision to fly full Y when it's not your dime, you have the budget, and your travel plans need to be flexable. I'm also travelling on my companies time and my billing rate is much higher than what I get paid so it's in their best interest to keep me billable instead of paying my salary to spend the time to travel to JFK. This has been the first year I've needed the flexability. If I was paying for a personal trip to Boston, I'm on Amtrak. JetBlue is getting is a rebuilt/new terminal at JFK BTW.

Yes, but don't forget that the airlines control the supply side of the market. Fuel costs and BK filings have dictated the parking of many aircraft in various airlines' fleets. To say that fuel costs have no impact on the market is a bit short sighted.

And fortunately there is more than one airline to take care of that.

If it's propaganda, please explain to us why CO made money at $30 oil, and had to massively cut salaries and is still bleeding red ink at $70 oil. Why are Delta, NW and USAir on the verge of bankruptcy?, and were somewhat solvent at $30 a barrel?You're the type that would bit-h at higher fares and then gthe curse the govt for having to bailout airlines and theiir pension plans.Those with brains would have recognized CO's strategy when the stock price was $9 and ridden it up to todays price of $30 to pay for their corny fare increase

You're missing the point. You said the fare increase was to cover increased fuel costs. It was not. The fare increase was because they believe the market will accept a price hike. The spin may be fuel costs to try to sell it to the public. And it seems that spin is working on at least one of us here.

But the fact of the matter is, had fuel been at $30 a barrel right now, and CO thought it could get away with raising fares, it would raise fares exactly the same way, though it would need to find a different way to spin it.

channa is right. I'd like to add or elaborate that it's more than mere spin, spin to me being not substantive at all. Fuel costs do have a causal impact on pricing, but not the direct one that chasbondy and others think it does.

Airlines will, indeed, raise the price to the most the market will bear. In a competitive market, all competitors charge the most they possibly can, eith a keen eye on the competition. If you raise fares too much, you lose too many customers to the other guy and go out of business. When oil prices were lower, margins (or losses!) were at a place where the competition often wouldn't go along with fare increases announced by one of the majors, and the carrier that implemented the fare hike would often retreat. These days, fare raises are often followed and thus often "stick," and up and up the ladder we go. The reason they're sticking, in large part (it seems to me), is because other carriers individually have decided they can't afford to keep prices lower to siphon off customers from other carriers. You could get the same result by colluding, but that's illegal.

But channa is dead-on correct that it's not simply a matter of CO (or any other carrier) raising fares just because their costs are up and they're shooting for a certain rate of return.

Well, I think they're desperately trying to raise fares to shoot for any return at all. Once they get in the black, further hikes can be questioned but until then I see no problem. You can't expect to stay in business by selling product below cost.

It's not that there is a problem, we're just discussing how to analyze now.