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A cheap airfare is tougher to find"CHEAP AIRFARE"
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3/16/2002 "Six months after Sept. 11, dirt-cheap seats on flights are scarcer - but still available to travelers patient enough to wait for a cheap airfare on airline tickets." Those who monitor airfares say inexpensive cheap flights may be harder to find by summer, when more people might be willing to brave airports to seek relaxation. Can't find what you need? Try a Google Web Search in the box below!
''You're going to continue to see pockets and pockets of sales,'' said Tom Parsons, CEO of Bestfares.com. ''You just have to be patient and keep in mind where you want to go.'' Even as customers adjust to fees of up to $10 round-trip to pay for the new Transportation Security Administration, some sense of normalcy is returning to air travel. Travelers are adjusting - although grudgingly - to ''wandings'' by security personnel. And Washington, D.C.'s Reagan National Airport, temporarily closed as a result of Sept. 11 and re-opened with reduced service, will offer near-normal service levels next month. According to the Air Transport Association, a trade group, airlines are still suffering, but less so with each passing month. While the industry saw 34 percent fewer passengers in September 2001 than the previous September, only 12.5 percent fewer people boarded planes in February 2002 than February 2001. It also found that a domestic cheap airfare in January were down 16 percent over the previous January. ''People are in the air,'' said Terry Trippler, a Minneapolis-based consultant. ''What we're finding happening now is the post-Sept. 11 fear factor has pretty much dissipated and the hassle factor was there for awhile.'' That ''hassle factor,'' Trippler said, dissipated largely because of efforts by the Transportation Security Administration to make increased security measures less of an inconvenience. Can't find what you need? Try a Google Web Search in the box below!
As more people resume traveling, airlines are trying to boost airfares to pay for the cost of doing business since the attacks. Right after Sept. 11, airlines clamored for passengers, offering a cheap airfare. But by January, airlines had a big problem - they couldn't afford to keep operating at such low rates. Cathy Keefe of the Travel Industry Association said good airfares can be found - they're just not always as low as they were right after Sept. 11. ''I think you can still find great airfares out there. But the onus is on the consumer now to find them.'' If you just don’t want to take a chance and believe in buying tickets early, you might think you got a cheap fare and they will not go any lower but sometimes even that cheap fare might drop. So after you buy your cheap ticket, you should keep your eyes on the cheap fare for the same flight, date and time. Should your airfare go lower, make contact with that airline and ask about a refund for the difference. Many airlines offer these kinds of refunds for cheap airfare tickets only on request, but to be honest, not all airlines will do this all the time. My advice is to discuss all scenarios with the airline because you never know until you ask. Find a cheap airfare at the airfares center /cheap airfares home |