Raising ticket prices is among the management decisions airlines seldom announce widely.That was the case overnight when Delta Air Lines raised its base coach fares by $5 each way. Analyst Jamie Baker of JP Morgan Securities reported in an investors' note today that American and Alaska matched the increase, making it likely that the other "legacy carriers" -- Continental, Northwest, United and US Airways -- will do the same over the weekend.
The increase was the second one for that group of airlines this year and brings to about a dozen the number of times base fares gone up since the start of 2006. Pushing up the full coach fares also means many lower-priced tickets also rise, since they're based on a percentage discount from the highest fare. The upward cycle of fares, along with cuts in capacity (the number of flights and seats available) by many arilines last year, helped them make money, a rare occurrence for most of them since their salad days in the 1990s .
Discounts are still out there, of course, especially if you can book weeks in advance and are willing to take connecting flights on the majors. But seldom does a major carrier put all of its non-stop flights on sale at the same time -- unless it faces competition from a low-cost ariline on a route. So watch, too, what the low-cost carriers, led by AirTran and Southwest at PHL, are doing. Every few weeks, they put all or most of their advance-purchase tickets on sale..
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