Seems to me that since fuel prices fell, I keep reading that airfares won’t drop for a l-o-n-g time. Most airlines, the theory goes, are planning to take money saved on fuel as a profit, rather than as an incentive to compete for more pax with lower airfares. Aviation Week & Space Technology (AW&ST) reiterates this theory as late as the February 2, 2015, issue, page 38.
Most articles along these lines do recite the caveat that it can fall apart at any point if airlines start competing for market share as airlines are wont to do.
Just in the last few days (as this is written), a potential customer asked how much it would cost for me to fly from TRI (Johnson City, TN) to PHX for a speech to an aviation group. I checked and was amazed. The price was about half what I expected. Holy cow. I’m not used to that. I double checked it several times and the fare stayed at that hard-to-believe price (I would tell you exactly how cheap it was, but I’m not that stupid. I don’t want to field all the questions about how I found it.).
I will say that the price was so low that I called Melissa Thomas, a whiz-bang PR person at TRI, to see if she knew what was happening. She was as amazed as I.
Is this low price an indication of competition getting hot at TRI? I don’t know, but I checked the price to PHX from other cities in the area and got quotes that were much higher. Time will tell.
I’ve got mixed feelings about this. More than anything, I want stable airlines. OTOH, if they put out low prices I’ll buy them. It helps me with my customers. Hell, it helps me get customers.
