Travelers Face Rising Holiday Airfare

(CBS)  All year long, travelers have been enjoying bargain basement fares, 12 to 14 percent cheaper than last year, reports CBS News correspondent Nancy Cordes.

But that's about to end.

"The rates were reasonable, this was about a week ago," said Lynn Kelsey, a traveler. "Then they went up a couple of hundred dollars a few days later."

She got socked by new industry-wide fare hikes, along with a first-time-ever $10 surcharge for flying on the busiest travel days, like the Saturday before Christmas.

"The airlines have to shore up their bottom lines in a slow period," said travel expert Rick Seaney with Farecompare.com.

Seaney said carriers were caught off guard last holiday season by a recession-induced drop-off in demand, which forced them to hold fire sales to fill seats.

Don't expect those deals this year.

"If you wait until after November 1 to buy your ticket, you're going to probably end up with some of the steepest prices you've ever paid for holiday travel," Seaney said.

That's because the airlines dealt with the decline in travel by cutting flights to levels not seen since 1999.

Come the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, there will be nearly 6,000 fewer seats on flights to Cincinnati than there were last year - that's a 23 percent drop. To Hartford, Conn., nearly 15 percent fewer seats. To Tampa, Fla, nearly 12 percent fewer.

And with airlines planning to shed more seats next year, one new study predicts Americans will take 74 million fewer flights in 2010 than they did last year - a nearly 10 percent drop.

"We won't rebound on that until about 2016," said Michael Boyd, the president of Boyd Group International, a consulting firm. "It's going to be a very slow air traffic rebound."

As usual, flexibility will pay off this holiday season. Just avoiding that Wednesday before Thanksgiving could cut your fare in half.

[sinbad865]

Don't know which airline twitter-com_travel_info
is talking about or maybe not even know what he/she is talking about.

Non-rev travel is only if there is an available seat after rev customers. Buddy pass travel is even worse as they travel behind the employees, again "if" there is a seat.

Not to mention, the airline charges the airline employee a fee for the buddy passes plus the taxes on the "highest" coach fare, which in most cases it is better to "buy" a ticket than go through the hassles of standby travel.
Also, that fee gets tacked on to your wages as an income to be included on your wages for taxes--- no bargain here for the employee at all.

Just so you know....

[twitter-com_travel_info]

Airlines are hurting, yes, flights look full, but most people don't understand only about 65% of passengers pay full fare. 25% use various discount tricks, 10% are *non-rev* ie; flying for free. with our economy, some of the 300,000 airline employees profit (albeit risky) by exchanging flight passes for outside services ie; tv's, laptops' adult-services,limo rides et. we get emails from people offering dental cleaning, legal traffic ticket rep services, 6 mos of bi-weekly haircuts etc. in exchange for free round-trip-air passes to Hawaii, Europe et. they're traveling as a guest of an employee' ticket agent, baggage handler et generating -zero revenue and often they are bumped into first class as a "courtesy" of the co-worker whom they're travel was provied by. higher prices are needed , not cool to the public but - like life itself...its not what you know' its who!

[jsd330]

Take Amtrak or Grayhound, at least they don't charge extra for luggage.

[mari1963]

Fewer flights for the holidays? Here's a thought.... STAY HOME !!!