Airlines Slash Fares to Fill Up Empty Seats

[MadJack]

<CITE>by Mike Esterl
Sunday, March 1, 2009</CITE>
provided by

After two years of steadily raising fares as fuel prices soared, U.S. airlines are slashing prices dramatically in an effort to fill up empty seats.
Travelocity, an online booking service, estimates that airfares for the 100 most popular domestic and international routes have fallen to 24-month lows and are 40% lower than last June, when they peaked.
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Some round-trip tickets between San Francisco and Boston, New York or Washington cost less than $250 at UAL Corp.'s United and AMR Corp.'s American, down from $350 to $400 a year ago; some round-trip tickets between New York City and Amsterdam, Madrid or Frankfurt have fallen below $400 on Continental Airlines, from between $600 and $700 a year ago; and tickets between Chicago and Sydney can be had for less than $1,000 -- down from more than $2,000 a year ago, according to industry fare trackers.
Price-cutting isn't what airlines had hoped to be doing in 2009. During the recent surge in oil prices -- which peaked above $140 a barrel last July -- air carriers axed thousands of jobs, streamlined operations and cut capacity. Through it all, they systematically avoided price wars. As a result, most of the big U.S. carriers appeared well-positioned for a payoff in profits once oil prices began falling.

<TABLE style="BORDER-RIGHT: #d7deee 1px solid; BORDER-TOP: #d7deee 1px solid; MARGIN: 10px; BORDER-LEFT: #d7deee 1px solid; BORDER-BOTTOM: #d7deee 1px solid" width="40%" align=left><TBODY><TR><TD style="PADDING-RIGHT: 10px; PADDING-LEFT: 10px; PADDING-BOTTOM: 10px; PADDING-TOP: 10px">Lower Prices on Many Flights


Airfares are down amid lower fuel prices and demand. A sampling:

• <LI style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 10px">New York City- Honolulu tickets can be had for under $550, down from over $1,000 a year ago. <LI style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 10px">Some fares between San Francisco and Boston, New York or Washington have fallen below $250 from as much as $400.
• Some tickets between Chicago and Sydney cost less than $1,000, down from more than $2,000.

</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
Now, fuel prices are down sharply -- but consumers are shutting their pocketbooks. Rosalind Rubens-Newell, a 48-year-old Atlanta attorney, flew to Las Vegas and St. Kitts on vacations last year. But she has no travel plans for 2009. "I'm really trying to be prudent," says Ms. Rubens-Newell.
With consumers reluctant to fly, fare sales are proliferating. "I don't remember a year other than 2001 that we've seen this kind of commotion in airfares," says Tom Parsons, chief executive of Bestfares.com, a discount travel Web site.
Last week, discount airline AirTran Airways launched a domestic fare sale with one-way tickets as low as $39 between American cities. Two days later, American began trumpeting one-way fares to some European cities for around $200 and a one-way price of $75 between Los Angeles and Los Cabos, Mexico. Rival airlines were quick to match offers.
Rick Seaney, chief executive of FareCompare.com, an airfare-comparison Web site for consumers, says would-be fliers can find some of "the best deals since the beginning of the century." For instance, he notes, Northwest Airlines, now part of Delta Air Lines, and other carriers are hawking round-trip fares for as little as $125 to fly between Minneapolis and Chicago, after fares rose as high as $350 last year.
Discounts on long-haul flights also are growing -- helped in part by falling fuel surcharges. Mr. Parsons, at Bestfares.com, said flights between New York City and Honolulu can be had for $539 instead of $1,098 a year ago; Los Angeles-Honolulu is $339 instead of $540. Fuel surcharges were up to $90 a year ago for Hawaii and are zero now.
Multiple airlines recently began offering special roundtrip fares to Dublin, Ireland, from cities such as Dallas and Los Angeles for around $700. The same seats cost more than $1,000 last year. Although airlines continue to charge $200 or more in surcharges for some other destinations, the fuel fee is now only $14 for Dublin.
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U.K.-based British Airways announced a new fare sale Tuesday under which American travelers can fly from New York and other major U.S. cities to London for less than $500. The airline is also giving two free nights at hotels in various European cities to buyers of some discounted airline tickets.
Even with fares dropping, many consumers are proving reluctant to spend. Las Vegas's McCarran International Airport, a popular tourist gateway, said last week that its passenger traffic fell 15.7% in January from the year before. "A lot of people will trade down and get in a car and take a shorter, closer trip" rather than get on a plane, says Doug Shifflet of D.K. Shifflet & Associates, which tracks travel trends.
Naren Nath, president of CFares, a discount airfare search-engine service, says traffic on his company's Web site rose 40% between November and February as cheap offers mounted. Despite that, there was a 26% drop in the number of visitors who take the next step of clicking on a booking link and a 43% decline in actual bookings. "Less and less people are booking, even though more and more people are looking," says Mr. Nath.
Continental Airlines said Monday that its load factor -- the percentage of occupied seats -- slumped to 72.5% in February from 76% a year earlier, despite industrywide capacity cuts of around 10% over the past year. Rival Southwest Airlines said Monday that its revenue outlook for the rest of the year "is more cautious" after revenue "softened" in February from January. In a regulatory filing Monday, Delta Air Lines, the world's largest airline by passenger traffic, reiterated its plans to further trim its capacity by between 6% and 8% in 2009.
There are some consumers who are taking advantage of the low fares. Edward Pizzarello of Ashburn, Va., said he attended a family reunion in Palm Springs, Calif., in mid-February because "it was so disgustingly cheap to fly." He found a round-trip American flight from the Washington, D.C., area to Santa Ana that cost him $200 and then drove to Palm Springs.
The 34-year-old restaurant franchisee says he's taking his family to Rome in April and will pay about a third less than he did for his last trip to Italy a few years ago. "We've ramped up recreational travel," he says.
Candace Klein, 39, is flying to Fiji this weekend with about 20 other people from her Rotary Club in Buckhead, Ga. The airfare for the Los Angeles-to-Fiji leg of the trip recently dropped to $1,250 from $2,250 last autumn.
Still, the delegation is smaller than the 45 people who had initially signed up. "All of the bankers and real-estate people have bowed out of the trip," says Ms. Klein.
?Paulo Prada contributed to this article.
Write to Mike Esterl at mike.esterl@wsj.com

 

[IE]

Airline offers $99 Manny fares



LOS ANGELES (AP)?Manny Ramirez isn?t the only one benefiting from his decision to rejoin the Los Angeles Dodgers.

To welcome back Ramirez, who agreed to a $45 million, two-year deal Wednesday, JetBlue Airways is offering a $99 Manny Fan Fare each way for Southern California residents. The fare amount represents Ramirez?s jersey number.

Through May 21, residents can travel from Long Beach to either New York?s JFK International or Boston?s Logan Airport or from Burbank to JFK. The special fare sale ends Sunday.

JetBlue is the Dodgers? airline partner.

?Customers can choose to jet to Manny?s hometown and our home base, New York, or the home of his former team in Boston,? said Marty St. George, the airline?s senior vice president of marketing.

 

[The Judge]

I just paid $512 for both nonstop flights to Europe and back.

 

[vinnie]

sounds like a good time for a vacation :SIB

 

[MadJack]

sounds like a good time for a vacation :SIB

imagine THAT! :mj07:

 

[SixFive]

prices don't look that hot to me.

 

[Snafu]

Looks like it's good time to visit US:


nonstop from Helsinki to N.Y and back here $780
1 USD = 0.791355 EUR 1 EUR = 1.26366 USD

Allso would like to think that it is easier to get hockey tickets at these times...

 

[vinnie]

Top Travel Myths
A fair amount of travel advice is just plain wrong. Here are a dozen popular ? yet unfounded ? travel "truisms," and the real stories behind them.




Myth: There are great deals at airport duty-free shops.


Reality: Put the liquor down. Ditto with the giant chocolate bar and the carton of cigarettes. Duty-free shops at airports make large profits because travelers assume they're getting bargains. People in transit are probably looking to unload some of their unused foreign currency, too. But The Duty-Free Price Guide, which compares duty-free prices around the world, reveals that the cost of duty-free merchandise varies widely. More of a concern is the fact that those same goods are often cheaper if bought in, say, New York or Hong Kong, rather than a duty-free shop in Zurich or Moscow.

Current Advice: Never assume prices are cheaper because they're in a store marked "duty-free."



Myth: Packages offer the best value.


Reality: The only way to truly know if a travel package is a deal is by doing the math and figuring out the total if you'd made purchases separately ? and don't forget to tally up all the taxes and fees. More important, it's essential to take a close look at what's included in the package. If the hotel is in an undesirable location, or there are golf lessons, a car rental, or spa treatments included that you don't really want, the package seems like less and less of a bargain, even if the retail value of those extras is impressive.

Current Advice: Booking ? la carte is often the smarter option.



Myth: Low-price guarantees actually guarantee the lowest price.


Reality: Virtually every major booking engine and hotel chain, airline, and car rental agency guarantees that its Web site has the absolute lowest price available, and typically backs up the claim by matching prices and offering additional discounts or coupons if proved wrong. First, these guarantees come with many caveats ? packages, discounts for AAA membership or military personnel, opaque bookings through sites like Priceline, and prices quoted over the phone typically aren't included ? so the rates often aren't the absolute lowest possible. Secondly, it's solely up to consumers to keep shopping for a better price after they've booked ? which no one wants to do.

Current Advice: Continuing to shop after making a booking is the only way to hold these companies to their word. It's especially important to check on hotel and car rental rates, because they fluctuate quite a bit, and reservations can typically be changed without penalty.



Myth: Four stars are better than three diamonds.


Reality: Hotel ratings offer little more than a rough estimate of quality. Each ratings system is based on a different set of criteria, and amenities factored into the score ? things like turndown service and valet parking ? may not necessarily matter to you. The two main rating systems in the U.S. ? AAA and Mobil ? often don't match up diamonds to stars. Guidebooks, booking engines, and newspaper and magazine articles may also offer hotel ratings, and none of these systems necessarily correlate. (Hampton Inns, for example, generally receive one-star ratings from Mobil, but two or three stars at Hotels.com.) Some hotel booking sites even allow hotels to rate themselves.

Current Advice: Before making a reservation, look beyond simple ratings and read all the details of trustworthy, objective reviews. Check out multiple sources, and look for a consensus.



Myth: Parents should pre-board with kids.


Reality: The pre-boarding courtesy offered by airlines to folks in wheelchairs, elite fliers, and people traveling with young kids sounds like a nice perk. But anyone who has traveled with kids knows it's best to have them confined in a cramped airline seat for as little time as possible.

Current Advice: Let children run around in the airport to burn off some energy, so that there's a chance they will sleep on board. One parent may want to board early, to set up some books in the seatback compartment and store bags in the overhead bin. The other parent can take care of the kids and be among the last people to get on the plane.



Myth: Airlines are indistinguishable.


Reality: Not long ago, most domestic airlines had virtually identical policies and services. Travelers decided which flight to book based almost entirely on price, departure times, and whether the route was nonstop. But travelers can no longer expect parity in terms of things like amenities, loyalty programs, and unaccompanied-minor policies. Baggage rules are especially all over the map: low-fare carriers Skybus and Spirit Airlines charge for all checked bags, whereas JetBlue and Southwest allow two pieces free of charge. Most legacy carriers still allow two complimentary checked bags, but United and US Airways started charging $25 per second checked bag early in 2008. And ticket-change fees vary from free (Southwest) to $40 (JetBlue and Skybus) to $75 or $100 (most other carriers).

Current Advice: There's a lot more to a flight than its price. Travelers should take careful note of the range of different policies and fees and factor them in before booking a flight.



Myth: The smartest time to book a flight is midweek after midnight.


Reality: This oft-quoted theory is based on a practice that's faded rapidly with the massive growth in online booking. A while back, on a Tuesday or Wednesday evening many airlines released reservations that hadn't been paid for ? so a flurry of discounted fares suddenly appeared. But the theory is outdated. Nowadays, airlines rarely hold reservations at all, and if they do it's generally only a guarantee that a seat ? but not the price ? will be held. Typically the only way to hold a seat and secure a particular fare is to purchase on the spot. Farecast.com uses historical data to track prices and make educated guesses as to whether a fare will dip or rise, but there's no predicting exactly when flight prices will change.

Current Advice: The best approach is to keep tabs on fare sales ? registering for airline e-mail newsletters is one way ? and then pounce on a good price when you see it.



Myth: To get the best airfare, booking far in advance is essential.


Reality: Often, the opposite is true. For most of the year, one or two months in advance is typically when airlines offer promotions to fill seats that aren't selling. There are times, however, when it's prudent to book well in advance ? namely, if you have absolutely no flexibility with your dates; if you're traveling during a peak time (holidays, popular travel weekends); if you're traveling with a large group (more than five or so); or if you're headed to a destination that doesn't have all that many flights to choose from.

Current Advice: Unless you fit into one of the categories above, it's generally okay to wait a while to book. If you've bought a ticket and are worried that prices will drop, register your flight at Yapta.com; the site tracks flight prices and will alert you if the fare dips and you're entitled to a refund or flight credit.



Myth: Honeymooners get free upgrades and other special treatment.


Reality: Actually, hotels, packagers, and travel agents may charge honeymooners higher prices than they'd charge regular travelers. The "honeymoon" package at a hotel might consist of little more than a bottle of champagne in the room ? and cost $150 more than the same room sans bubbly. In the same way banquet halls and florists charge more for weddings, the travel world often charges more for couples on their honeymoon.

Current Advice: While booking, keep it quiet that you're getting married. Feel free to announce your nuptial status, however, when checking in at the airport, the car rental counter, and the hotel. By then, reservations are set, and there's an outside chance a friendly counter agent might give you an upgrade at no extra charge.



Myth: Airline loyalty program members are likely to be upgraded.


Reality: In the old days, a frequent-flier member wearing a nice suit had a fair chance of being bumped up to business or first class if the flight was overbooked, or simply if a seat up front wasn't filled. These days, in an era when so many travelers belong to airline loyalty programs ? and when airlines are considerably stingier with rewards ? membership has lost its prestige and its value. Carriers tend to give upgrades on the spot only when forced to, due to overbooking. If that's the case, upgrades go to the most elite loyalty members ? typically die-hard business travelers with thousands of miles they will never have the chance to use.

Current Advice: Regular travelers have almost no chance of scoring a free upgrade. If your heart is set on sitting up front, accumulate points however you can (airline credit cards are the easiest way), and book a first- or business-class seat. Or, check out airlines offering less expensive business-class seats.



Myth: Checked luggage is often lost.


Reality: Somewhere between 1 and 2 percent of checked luggage doesn't arrive on the same plane with its accompanying owner. Of those bags, the majority are delayed, not lost, and they wind up with the owner in a matter of hours. A very small fraction of checked bags disappear for good.

Current Advice: A delayed bag could make a traveler's life difficult, so it's prudent to avoid checking in late, which increases the chances that your bag won't make it onto the plane. Also, put your contact info inside the bag, so that if it is delayed ? or mistakenly grabbed by another passenger ? there's no confusion about who the owner is. Never put valuables or fragile items in a checked suitcase. It's just asking for trouble.

 

[yyz]

Current Advice: Let children run around in the airport to burn off some energy, so that there's a chance they will sleep on board.


That's great advice! Sadly, from what I see, a lot of parents don't need this advice......they know it already!