Wow! I am really glad I booked our Tokyo flight six weeks ago.

Airfare has gone down in recent years because of competition. Competition is dropping out, so I fear they're going back up.
I can remember, 10-15 years ago, paying $2300 RT for PHL-LAX, $550 for PHL-Albany, NY.

You should be able to do better than $700 for that trip. Have you looked at kayak.com? Are your dates flexible at all? It's usually cheaper to fly in the middle of the week to cities that aren't "tourist" destinations.

I just booked a flight from Cleveland to Portland, OR for less than $400. And I'm flying from Portland to Pennsylvania in June for $385, which is about the same price I've paid for that trip for the past 15 years. Generally (at least in my experience), airfare runs about $75-$100 for every hour you're in the air.

So, I tend to agree with monica. Airfare has not really gone up that much in recent years. And you sure can't hop in the car and drive from Oregon to Pennsylvania for $400.

Airfares between ORF and Boise start at $198 for travel in July, to that they add fuel surcharges, taxes and security fees, those usually come to $50-60. That does not mean that those fares are available, those are the lowest fares that they offer in that market in July. Boise is a popular destination in summer, so are the airports in Montana, Wyoming and the Dakotas....national parks.

The airlines cannot afford to fly at some of the cheap fares that they offer, they are losing a fortune. Fuel is killing them, employee costs.......they cannot do it. And now with all the flight cancellations that Delta, Southwest and now American have because of the MD80's, they are all hurting even more. The industry is sick and if they don't do something more are going to die.

One of them needs to get up the gumption to charge a fair airfare and stick to it. Like Portland to PA for $500-600. If people don't want to pay it then let them stay home or let them drive. The airlines declaring bankruptcy or stopping operations hurts all of us.

the days of cheap flights are permanently gone. even w/ competition there is no way to not raise prices because of fuel increases. i was recently looking at a vacation scrapbook i have and during a high school springbreak i went to phoenix for $385 in 1984-1985 from chicago. we'll being paying alot more for flights which to me is o.k. it has to do w/ gas/fuel prices and on the plus side there will be far fewer horrible young kids on the planes and probably a bit more open seats.

i work for a company that ships via semi's and we have not raised freight rates on plant material in 4 yrs and during that time diesel has tripled. do you think we will continue to ship so cheap lol?! heck no we want to keep our jobs and since we have not increased in yrs our customers understand for the most part. those that don't are looking to cheap it out and we are not in the cheap customer business anyways. ~ liz

Airfares have been way too low for many years. Airlines make most of their money carrying cargo. The price of your ticket has to cover fuel costs as well as many other factors. Air fares need to and should go up. Consider low fares a great deal while it lasted but they were very under priced.
Donna