Tight Squeeze Looms For Holiday Travelers

(CBS)  Travel agent Agnes Ludwikowski got a shock this week while booking two round-trip tickets from Washington, D.C., to Denver.

"I wish I could find something lower but everyday they just seem to be going up," Ludwikowski told CBS News transportation and consumer safety correspondent Nancy Cordes.

One for this month for $375, and another for Thanksgiving weekend.

"We looked at the prices and it had jumped up to $691 - same exact flight and one month later. Double the price! Limited availability," Ludwikowski said.

Very limited.

According to the travel Web site FareCompare.com, U.S. Airways has 18,192 fewer seats the Wednesday before Thanksgiving than they did last November. Northwest, 11,300 fewer. Continental, 9,500 and United, 9,200.

"The number of flights hasn't changed that much. What's drastically changed is the size of airplanes," said Rick Seaney, CEO of FareCompare.com. "The airlines are flying 50-, 70- and 100-seat jets where they used to be flying 130- or 150-seat jets."

The cities that have lost the most seats - Detroit, Houston, Washington, Boston, Philadelphia and Minneapolis.

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FYI: Check out how more cities rank and how many seats each airline cut this year.

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"The cities that have a reduction in seats, I would try to avoid at all costs when connecting. Because what's gonna happen is you're gonna get there and if there is any delay, there's gonna be nowhere to put you," Seaney said.

Switching to smaller regional jets has allowed the airlines to offer more flights per day, but the cost is capacity.

It would take nearly five Embracer 50-seaters to carry the load of one 757. Plus, there's less opportunity to stretch out. That's a point Southwest, which only flies full-sized planes, chose to highlight in its new ads.

And Southwest's fleet of 737s aren't even as large as the double-aisle widebodies, like 747s, that many airlines mothballed when travel demand fell after 9/11.

"Those planes have all been sold now. Or leased. They're being used in Central American, Eastern Europe, or Africa," said Aviation Industry Analyst Peter Goelz.

FareCompare.com did find that many of the budget airlines - Jet Blue, Air Tran, Southwest and the new Virgin America - have added thousands of seats since last Thanksgiving to cities such as Orlando, San Francisco, Denver, Seattle, Los Angeles and New Orleans.

And checking with those budget airlines may be the best bet if you want to get to Grandmother's house without breaking the bank.

[slim1h2o]

Posted by whispyseas at 04:57 PM : Oct 05, 2007

Are you ok? I mean that sincerely, I don''t know what else to say, but are you ok?

[whispyseas]

'' ... they don''t pay me to hold hands with naked girls hanging out on the street corners, they pay me to spank them till they get off the street corners, and i LLOOVVEE my job ... ''

[whispyseas]

'' ... 33 trail crossing yseedsberrys each day, 33 sick beds each day, medical you are here map song dance skit kit to share here or there, drip compost fertilizets drip water irrigatets now or then... ''

[whispyseas]

'' ... i''m not sure the average land take of the average farms of the average countys, i''m sure 40 to 90 percent is far from unheard of, dirt farms and spore farms are the future, they cost relatively nothing and produce endless new mutated varietys so long as the new are afforded food and medicine to survive, and they require relatively no land mass and can even easily float ... ''

'' ... 7 billion folk, avg 90,000 countys of 90,000 folk, each county avg 300 16+ acre trail group trail crossings (yseedsberrys) of 300 folk each, spaced an average mile or two apart, not a country or a company, just a bunch of farming folk with 300 2500 square foot parcels w/ 340 sq ft cottage studios to borrow here or there now or then for dancing get well feed world songs rallyd round the sick beds drifting the spore bloom weed dragon trail fickle first aid lunch farm cottage studio trail group trail crossing yseedsberrys ... ''

'' ... the whale swimming through space, peaked in to say hey, then turned, and diappeared, reappearing a little off in the distance, then morphed into some spreading twigs and branches streching fastly and farly off into the distant distant distance before the tail long long tail end of it began too to fade into the forever ... ''

[whispyseas]

'' ... i''m not a flicket in oblivion, i''m not the one and only lord, i''m not an unwilling unwitting victim in eternal hell, i''m a eternal storyboard swimming drifting infinite oceans of eternal storyboards, no suffering can i inflict, no death neither, i am surrounded by myselfs, we are the endless, but only ''cause we tend to choose that, because we tend to believe that ... ''

[whispyseas]

'' ... china had fine sailing ships and could have ruled the world, but turned isolationist on the whim of a emperor, then the biblical folk (out of africa) invented sailing ships of their own and conquered the world, but starved most of it (concincidentally: mostly the non white non bible part of it) ... so anyways, the hungry chinese and indians: starved like the rest of the non white non bible world learned english and the bible and western capitalism to save their starving raped babies, and so acquired more bible english capitalists and bible english capitalist companies and bible english capitalist dollars than the bible english capitalists themselves, thus the land of the evil winged serpent dragon girls sucked the life directly out of the ***** of their enemys, but only ''cause they had ta ''cause they were non bible non english non capitalist non men non authority girls ... ''

'' ... putting trillions into get sick tax world: one wins schools full of dare war rape victims, and a overpaid understaffed consortium that can''t afford to canvas a tiny lawn, while putting trillioons into minimum wage get well feed world, one wins trail crossings full of hike naked dance dressed get well feed world girls and other folk rallyd round hundreds millions sick beds drifting tens millions spore bloom weed dragon trail fickle first aid lunch farm cottage studio trail groups ... ''

'' ... 696960 sq ft per trail crossing, 6969.60 ft trail crossing to trail crossing, roughly ... ''

[hungry1968]

I wonder how long Bush and Cheney will have to wait in lines at the air port(s)...

Since it doesn''t directly affect them, I guess it''s not a problem, and therefore they''ll let the "the market correct itself" rather than intervening on our part like they should.

[slim1h2o]

Hey, I''ve got an idea! Why don''t everybody boycott the airlines? That''ll show''em. LOL

[mediapositio]

Wow, pretty cranky bunch here. Let me go against the grain and state that this was a helpful and interesting story. Over 2.5 million people will go home for Thanksgiving, and need to know what to watch for this season. Thanks for the information.

[undermyboot]

Just got back from a wonderful flight across the country. Everything is great in First Class. It''s just the rabble in coach that whines all of the time. Thank God for the free headphones and alcohol. ROFLMAO.