Delta leads new round of airline fare hikes

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Major U.S. airlines raised fares on
most domestic routes by $5 each way on Friday, matching a fare
hike pushed through on Thursday by bankrupt carrier Delta Air
Lines Inc..

Continental Airlines Inc., US Airways Group Inc., JetBlue
Airways Corp. and Northwest Airlines Corp. all said they had
matched the Delta increase.

“Delta continues to respond to the increasing cost
pressures on our business, including fuel,” said Delta
spokeswoman Chris Kelly.

U.S. carriers have been increasingly aggressive in boosting
prices to recover profits which had been decimated by higher
fuel prices and an oversupply of available seats.

That is bad news for U.S. consumers used to low ticket
prices but good news for the airlines, many of which could pull
out of the red this year after several years of losses.

Leading discount carrier Southwest Airlines Co. raised
fares last Friday and several other airlines matched that hike
on overlapping routes.

The latest increase was on routes where Southwest, which
has used fuel price hedges to keep fares relatively low, does
not compete, said JP Morgan analyst Jamie Baker, who first
disclosed the latest fare hike in a research note.

Baker said AMR Corp.’s American Airlines and UAL Corp.’s
United Airlines, the largest and second-largest U.S. carriers,
also matched the increase. Neither immediately returned phone
calls seeking comment.