Major Airlines Hike Fares, but Will it Stick?

There's a 95 percent chance Senior Editor Christine Sarkis is thinking about travel right now. Follow her on Instagram @postcartography and Twitter @ChristineSarkis.

Christine Sarkis is an SATW-award-winning journalist and executive editor at SmarterTravel. Her stories have also appeared on USA Today, Conde Nast Traveler, Huffington Post, and Business Insider. Her advice has been featured in dozens of print and online publications including The New York Times, Conde Nast Traveler, and People magazine. She has also shared travel tips on television and radio shows including Good Morning America, Marketplace, and Here & Now. Her work has been published in the anthologies Spain from a Backpack and The Best Women's Travel Writing 2008. She is currently working on a travel memoir.

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There’s the good news and the bad news.

The good news is that, in a year characterized by about 20 attempted fare hikes, only about half of the price boosts have stuck, according to the Associated Press. And lately, prices have remained reassuringly steady.

And now, the bad news: This week has brought not one, but two fare hikes from major U.S. carriers. Happy holidays!

So far, the latest hike of about $5 each way on many domestic flights has been embraced by Continental, Delta, and United. And Bloomberg Businessweek reports that, industrywide, fares are already up to $70 higher than they were this time last year.

One of the most common indicators of whether a fare hike will stick or be rolled back is whether it’s adopted across the airline industry. And at least in this case, that might be the saving grace, as some analysts think Southwest won’t join the crowd, thereby forcing the legacy lines to give up on this latest attempt.

So what’s a traveler to do? George Hobica, the resident airfare expert at our sister site Airfarewatchdog, has a hunch that holiday airfare prices can’t get much higher, so they might just get lower for the upcoming season.

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