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Airfares Plummeting, Airlines Sinking Faster Than Ever
If you're trying to figure out why airlines like American keep reporting mindblowing revenue declines over 2008, the airfare figures for last quarter are out. How desperate were airlines to get any kind of passenger at any kind of price? Desperate enough to drop their prices to 1998 levels.
That means that airlines are more skittish about their current market position than they were after 9/11. As a reminder, that was a terrorist act which involved airplanes and therefore shook people's confidence in airplanes which are the things that airline companies fly. The price dip over the last few months has been worse than that, pointing to an industry that's out of options to get people buying tickets.
Tags: Virgin America / Baggage Fees / Airlines / Airline News / Tickets / Airfares / → All Tags
Virgin America Launches Refundable Main Cabin Tickets With 'Hangover Clause'
Virgin America, the California-based airline that paid too much for their ubiquitously-plastered slogan "on a mission to make flying good again," is launching a new class of fully-refundable, fully-transferable flight options. The "Main Cabin Refundable" fares will obviously cost a little bit more but, in addition to allowing you a wide range of ticket changes, they come with perks like checking in a bag for free (no small perk these days). This is basically a travel insurance-plus fare.
Main Cabin Refundable tickets are fully refundable up to the literal minute of departure. Ditto for transferring the tickets to a different name. There are no blackout dates, no minimum or maximum stay requirements, and no advanced purchases required. They really seem to be going out of their way to make these fares usable and attractive, even refunding the differences between old and new tickets to your credit card.
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Adventures of Link: Airline Stunts
JetBlue's happy hour fare sale thingy was yesterday, and according to the carrier it went well. (Surprise!)
But that isn't the only airline stunt we've heard about lately. Besides Southwest's obsession with not having any fees, here are the rest of the gimmicks trying to separate you from the four bucks you have left after today's continued stock slide.
Related Stories:
· Virgin America and Barclays Now Have a Credit Card [MW]
· OpenSkies Slingin' Cheap Seats [MW]
· Southwest's No Fee Marketing Seems to Be Working [MW]
· Virgin Atlantic Stepping Attacks on BA [Official Site]
· And the Ultimate: $20 Transatlantic Tix on Ryanair? [Jaunted]
[Photo of snack time at the ticket sale: JetBlue]
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Virgin America Planning Main Cabin Select Service
An announcement yesterday from Virgin America got a little bit buried by all the space tourism news. But it's a big deal that the airline's calling Main Cabin Select service.
The amped-up economy tickets will basically get you first class perks at your main cabin seat. Among the pluses: Free food, drinks and cocktails; free in-flight entertainment, including movies; 38-inches of seat pitch; reserved overhead bin storage and priority check-in, security screening and boarding.
MCS will go on sale September 15 for flights from mid-October and later, and the service will cost $50-$100 more than a standard economy ticket. While that means it isn't for the ultra-price sensitive, we like the idea. As others have noted, ancillary charges aren't nearly as onerous when they go toward a new service rather than something passengers have traditionally gotten for free.
Related Stories:
· VA Now Offering "Main Cabin Select" Service [Official Site]
· Virgin America coverage [Jaunted]
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Virgin America Travel: Summer Deals, Sneaky Fees and In-Flight Parties
YAY: Virgin America has announced some new "Summer Loving" fares today. Flights from SFO to New York are $179 each way; same with flights from LA to New York. SFO to LA has dropped to $59 each way, and SFO to San Diego is even cheaper at $49 each way. All the details are here.
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HOWTO: Hedge Those Airfares
Have you tried to book an airline ticket lately? They're getting expensive! But without a miraculous drop in the price of oil, fares are only gonna go up this summer.
Luckily, airfare obsessive Rick Seaney has a terrific tip for keeping your costs down as prices go up: Hedge. Usually it's detrimental to buy plane tickets more than about six weeks before your departure. But Rick says this summer, you're better off locking in a price now before fuel surcharges--and prices--go up yet again.
We love this tip because it's so insider-y. Airlines do the same thing when buying fuel; it's been helping the bottom lines at Southwest and JetBlue for years. If you're gonna stay within your summer travel budget, better get booking now.
Of course, we should mention that there's always the chance that fares will end up dropping on your particular route, but that's the risk you take when you're playing the oil futures market. Hey, now you know how the airlines feel!
Related Stories:
· Attention Summer Travelers: Hedge [Rick Seaney]
· Airlines Finally Passing Higher Costs on to Passengers [Jaunted]
· Airfares coverage [Jaunted]
[Photo: Fetchy]
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Airlines Finally Passing Higher Costs on to Passengers
If you've been shopping for plane tickets lately, you probably don't need us to tell you they're getting more expensive. The average airfare in the US is 10 percent more expensive this year than last. And that's before you get nickel-and-dimed by excess baggage fees, exit-row seating fees and fee fees.
Not that we are blaming the airlines. As American Airlines CEO Gerard Arpey rightly says:
There is no business that can go on forever selling its product for less than the cost to produce it.
That's the plain-and-simple reason fares are inching up across the board. And on high-demand routes, the increases over last year's prices are even bigger than that average of 10 percent.
Mergers would allow airlines to trim routes and, by reducing capacity, further raise prices, though carriers say that's not the plan. (Riiiiight.) This is all good news to one company, though. Virgin America is keeping fares low by burning through investor cash, and the airline hopes that after one flight it'll have its new customers hooked.
Related Stories:
· Strapped Airlines Seen Pushing Fares Higher [WSJ]
· American Airlines Loses $3.3 Million a Day [Fortune, via CNN Money]
· Airlines coverage [Jaunted]
[Photo: Fetchy]
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American Hoping to Woo Jaded Fliers with Low Fares
Cancellations? What Cancellations? American Airlines wants you to forget all those troubles and get down to Latin America and the Caribbean on the cheap.
The current promo is for tickets out of Miami or Fort Lauderdale, but those cities are easy enough to reach on either AA or the low cost carrier of your choice. Once at MIA, we're talking round trip to Managua, Nicaragua for $289 all-in or flights from FLL to San Jose, Costa Rica for $260 all-in. Caribbean destinations include Santo Domingo, DR and Grand Cayman.
The bad news is that you'll have to buy your tix today; the sale ends at midnight. Of course the good news is that fares are dirt cheap.
Related Stories:
· Low Fares from South Florida on AA [Official Site]
· American Airlines coverage [Jaunted]
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Premium Economy Deals on Virgin Atlantic to London
Thinking about a trip to London? Don't want to fly British Airways and deal with the Terminal 5 baggage nightmare or Naomi Campbell going batshit for no good reason?
Virgin Atlantic has some spring deals on their Premium Economy class from a bunch of American cities to London.
For instance: Los Angeles to London is $464 one-way from Apr 24-May 25. Over the summer (until Sept. 3), the price jumps to $634 one-way. From Newark, the deal is much cheaper at $314 one-way from April 24-May 25. ($464 one-way over the summer.)
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Jaunted Insta-Review: New Flight Aggregator InsideTrip
Can't get enough of an information overload by using Kayak? Click over to InsideTrip, then, where the data dump is of truly biblical proportions.
The meta-searcher brings up what it considers the best fares for a given city pair, of course, then goes further:
For each search, InsideTrip provides not just fares but also evaluations of what [founder Dave Pelter] calls 12 "pain points." These include the amount of legroom in a cabin, how often the flight is on time, the aircraft type (larger jets get higher ratings), how crowded a specific flight typically is and if you can walk to your connection. It even considers how long it usually takes to get through the security checkpoint nearest the gate.
We punched in an imagined trip from New York to Miami for the Winter Music Conference. Kayak came up with some JetBlue flights, which were $300 cheaper than the best fare InsideTrip found. The newcomer may have info on seat pitch and on-time ratings, but leaving out great fares means InsideTrip won't be our first stop for online airfare searches just yet.
Related Stories:
· A Web Site Tries to Redefine Value [NYT]
· InsideTrip [Official Site]
· Kayak [Official Site]
· Travel Websites coverage [Jaunted]
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HOWTO: Save Big Money by Booking Online
We love us some online flight booking. And while we were pricing out a trip this weekend, we were once again reminded of how positively awesome Airfare Watchdog can be.
Thanks to George Hobica and his team, we managed to save close to $300 bucks on two tickets. And all we had to do was punch in a promo code we got from AW. But booking online can be a hassle. Luckily, we're here to tell you how to do it right:
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Virgin America Launch: LAX to SFO Could Be Key
This weekend we took a look under Virgin America's web hood and found out that this Virgin, while competitive on price, isn't going to be offering rock bottom prices out of the gate on August 8th.
Roundtrip flights from New York to Los Angeles ring in between $377 and $438. Sure it's a good deal, but the even better news is Southwest and JetBlue have already announced they will be matching Virgin prices.
So what is the Virgin game plan? Well, we have been inside their cabin and we can tell you it is easily the best cabin on a US carrier, bar none.
However, one way the Virgin can make a great first impression on those first to ride her is to be on time. Now, we know some luck has to factor into this, but with fewer flights and fewer destinations, if Virgin can be reliably on time, say from LAX to SFO, a route that is currently known as a faster drive than a flight, the word will get out. LAX to SFO is an easy to digest $50 each way, thus with a decent on time arrival rate, fliers could flock to VA. After all, no one wants to be on the Grapevine, but United makes avoiding that long, boring drive nearly impossible.
