Airlines post increase on holiday surcharges
BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
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Published: November 3, 2009
DALLAS — If you plan to travel around the holidays, prepare to pay more — again.
Most of the largest
U.S. airlines have increased a surcharge for travel on the busiest travel days from $10 to $20 each way.
The surcharges apply to a large number of flights within the U.S. on more than a dozen peak days around Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s.
Delta, American, United,
US Airways and Northwest all boosted their surcharge on some routes, said
Tom Parsons, who runs the discount travel site
Bestfares.com.
Tim Smith, spokesman for
Fort Worth-based
American Airlines, confirmed higher surcharges Monday. He said that although airlines are filing the increases as a surcharge this time, "fares on those peak days have always tended to be higher. It’s a matter of supply and demand.”
Smith said the increases started late last week with US Airways, and "most other airlines, including American, have matched.”
US Airways spokesman
Morgan Durrant said his airline did so only "to match moves by our competitors.”
Delta, its Northwest subsidiary, and United also raised the surcharges to $20 each way on many U.S. routes.
Parsons said the increases were part of a clear trend in pricing.
"With airlines downsizing, fuel going up and airlines still losing money,” he said, "we’re going to pay more for family vacations going into 2010.”
The airlines’ busiest days tend to fall before or after a major holiday.
As examples of the new $20 one-way surcharge — it’s usually folded into the price online — Parsons cited several itineraries for Dec. 27, the Sunday after Christmas.
On that day, you’ll pay a $20 each-way surcharge to take American from Dallas to
Los Angeles, United from
Chicago to
New Orleans, Delta from
New York to
Albuquerque,
N.M., and US Airways from
Charlotte, N.C., to
Orange County, Calif.
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