In what can only be greeted as good news by travelers favoring cheap airplane tickets and cheap vacation packages the most recent attempt by carriers to increase prices has collapsed.
On Saturday, February 25th, United Airlines, which had kicked off the latest round of price increases, began rolling back prices on many routes. US Airways followed United on Sunday and dropped its prices.
By Monday American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Frontier Airlines and Virginia America cut airfares across their routes.
The week of February 20th carriers increased airfares between $4 and $10 per round trip. However low cost competitors did not correspondingly respond. Typically if low cost airlines do not hike their prices in response to higher quoted airfares, the legacy airlines reverse course.
Year to date airlines have successfully hiked prices twice and analysts anticipate that they will continue trying. Expectations are that domestic airline ticket prices will gradually become more costly this year but not rise anywhere near the rate of increasing gas prices.
Prices may dip as airlines run into the summer buying frenzy. Airlines are expected to meet serious resistance to higher airline ticket prices as airlines attempt to figure out how to offset increasing fuel costs.
In 2011, airlines attempted to increase airfares a total of 22 times, of which only nine were successful. www.cheapfares.com