While in the last 12 days there have been two attempts at system-wide fare increases, the index remains stubbornly low, and actually declined during Delta’s initial increase.
What’s been happening is that the carrier pricing is going in both directions at the same time. So while there are system-wide increases, there are also decreases being filed across the top markets.
To my mind this “stagflation” is an indication of the current dilemma facing carriers — a need to raise pricing for the peak travel period and weak domestic demand pushing the need for discounting.
Below is a 30-day chart of the index. The recent small peaks are the Continental increase and the Delta.
