Airlines welcome New Year with extended airfare sales

Heavily-discounted fares are spreading throughout the airline industry in the early day of 2009, as weakened demand makes it difficult to fill seats even after many have drastically reduced capacity – and some airlines are considering additional service cuts.

Industry experts and a number of executives had predicted that capacity cuts introduced by many carriers last September would reduce or eliminate the need for fare sales. With the drop in fuel prices and worsening economic conditions, the demand for air travel has continued to decline, however.

Rick Seaney, of the online airfare research company Farecompare.com, says that average base airfares are higher now than they have been in the past few years – outside the period covered by the recently announced sales. According to Seaney, 30 attempted hikes in airfares were introduced between the summers of 2007 and 2008, and two-thirds of the attempts were successful.

The new airfare sales do not impact charges and fees that airlines have imposed, such as baggage fees, for example.

Airlines often announce fare sales in January, and in fact there were around 18 introduced in January of 2008. What is different this year is that a number of airlines have extended the validity of the discounts into May and June, Seaney noted.

www.farecompare.com