FareCompare.com has pulled the system-wide published airfares (normally a top subset for reporting this alert reporting) for the domestic U.S. and Canada from the 8:00pm EDT Wednesday June-20 airfare feed (evening before the increase) and the 8:00pm EDT Thursday 28-June (this evening) and compiled the following final report.
This report shows the percentage of markets that have a $5 one-way or more increase this evening as compared to Wednesday evening last week.
The breakdown is by Advance Purchase within airline. 7 days or less advance purchase is considered a business fare, more than 7 days advance purchase is considered leisure. Market is a city pair. Not all airlines file fares in each advance purchase category.
Final Airline Breakdown of 21-June Airfare Hike
Tonight, Continental Airlines increased Domestic fuel surcharges by $1.86 one-way (2$ one-way with the 7.5% U.S sales tax). This is on the heals of matching Deltas $5 one-way airfare increase initiated last Thursday night.
Fuel surcharges are added on domestic airfares using the “Surcharge Rule” which is one of the 20+ rules on each airfare. Consumers will see a $4 increase. Continental will only pocket $1.86 one-way (the U.S government the other $.14).
A few interesting notes about this fuel surcharge increase:
Statistics:
|
Advance Purchase
|
$ Increase Markets
|
Total Markets with this Advance Purchase |
Increase Market
|
|
0
|
13,625 |
17,612 |
77%
|
|
3
|
9,352 |
12,591 |
74%
|
|
7
|
11,582 |
15,777 |
73%
|
|
14
|
11,925 |
16,246 |
73%
|
|
21
|
7,220 |
9,200 |
78%
|
Note: Due to competitive nature of each market airlines do not always have 3, 7, 14, 21 day advance purchase airfares in all markets
The original increase from last week is settling in with rollbacks based on competitive market pressures to stay at equilibrium on pricing.
We will be creating a special report later this afternoon with up to date effects of this increase in “smaller markets”, “major markets” and “non-stop” markets for each airline.
Analysis of the 8:00pm EDT 26-June and 10:00am EDT 27-June airfare feeds show:
American Airlines
- Rollback of an additional 3.5% (rollback total of 59.5% to date)
Continental
- Rollback of an additional 6% (rollback total of 52% to date)
Delta
- Rollback of an additional 2.5% (rollback total of 25.5% to date)
Northwest
- Rollback of an additional 1.5% (rollback total of 45.5% to date)
United
- Rolled back an additional 18.5% (rollback total of 42.5% to date)
US Airways
- Rolled back an additional 7.5% (rollback total of 19.5% to date)
Matching of last weeks Continental initiated airfare hike continues today as most of the major airlines adjust to their competitors.
Analysis of the 10:00am EDT airfare feed shows:
American Airlines
- Rolled back 37% of their increase on Friday
- Rollback was predominantly on business fares (7 day advance purchase or less)
Airfare Hike Matching Continues Today
In tonight’s 5pm EDT domestic U.S./Canada airfare distribution, Delta partially rolled back the 5$ one-way increase that started at the end of last week.
The Delta partial rollback was on 10% of their increases filed on Thursday.
It is not unusual for competitive pressures to cause an airline to partially rollback increases (in this case a quick sampling shows Delta rolling back on competing AirTran markets where they did not follow on the increase late last week).
Additionally, United and Northwest both had minor 5$ one-way rollbacks on less than 2% of their original increases, showing that jockeying for position is starting to occur this evening.
At this point there is no indication on whether or not a full rollback is likely to occur.
The next airfare distribution occurs at 10am EDT Monday morning and we will update via e-mail on significant activity.
At 12:30pm eastern Continental filed a major increase of 5$ one-way for both leisure and business fares including 0, 3, 7, 14 and 21 day advance purchase categories.
A total of 7,762 markets (unique city pairs) where increased by 5$ one-way.
Analysis of the tops 50 cities to/from each other yields a total of 1,179 markets and Continental’s increase is on 484 of these top markets.
The timing of this increase is unusual, initiating airlines normally issue increases at 8pm on Thursday night for maximum impact.
Non-stop flight schedule analysis for the U.S. and Canada shows:
- Continental has non-stop flights in 822 markets (unique city pairs) in the U.S. and Canada
- Fare increases of 5$ one-way occurred in 415 of these 822 non-stop markets or 50.4% of the non-stop Continental route system
Further matching and rollbacks are likely to occur this evening and over the weekend.
We will send out an update after the 8pm eastern airfare feed.
This evening at 8pm partners Air Canada and United Airlines raised airfares for travel between U.S. and Canada (trans-border) by 2 to 3 percent.
This increase includes both business and leisure airfares (0, 3, 7, 10, 14, 21, 30 day advance purchase).
Non-stop analysis of Air Canada and United flights shows:
- Air Canada has 75 markets with trans-border non-stops. This airfare increase applied to 100% of these routes.
- United has 22 trans-border non-stop markets. This airfare increase applied to 100% of these routes.
Separately United Airline raised prices by $5 each way for travel to Hawaii from all domestic departure points.
During the day (19-Jun) there was consistent matching activity on AirTran markets.
The volume was significant. We only send out this alert when the matching is above 15%.
The matching statistics are posted below.
AirTran 14-Day Airfare Sale Matching Rundown
Monday evening (18-June) at 8pm AirTran Airways filed a system-wide 14-day advance purchase airfare sale (see our original post showing this is the 4th summer airfare sale in the past 40 days by AirTran).
This morning (Tuesday 19-June) at 10:00am all the major airlines except Continental and US Airways matched this airfare sale in overlapping AirTran markets. Continental did lower a small number of airfares to protect their Cleveland and Newark hubs.
This sale comes on the heals of an business fare increase (less than 14-day advance purchase) 2 weeks ago which gave the major airlines fuel to match the increase. As an example of the scale of the matching in the 14-day advance purchase airfares:
- American matched 52 markets, average decrease $80, largest decrease $307
- Delta matched in 75 markets, average decrease $26, largest decrease $202
- United matched 835 markets, average decrease $42, maximum decrease $586
Review of yesterdays 12:30pm EDT domestic airfare distribution shows that AirTran Airways triggered the first wave of increases of $5 and $10 each way between 32% of the top 50 U.S. Domestic cities, with Continental matching and extending at 8:00pm EDT along the other major airlines matching selective overlap markets and extending from their hubs.
After the 5-June 10:00 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. EDT airfare distribution feeds (next feed 8:00pm EDT) the activity is relatively light with the following highlights:
- Continental reinforces its increase of $5 one-way for 3-day advance purchase airfares between 11% of the top 50 cities (30% Monday night), with very little Southwest route overlap
- The other major airlines continue to maintain equilibrium by matching selected overlap markets with Continental and AirTran
- Northwest and Delta roll back some of its matching increases from last night on competitive Southwest routes
The sensitivity to increases on Southwest routes at this point in the week is worth noting.
