Airlines looking like Scrooge

With fuel prices high and financial troubles boiling at many of the nation's largest airlines, travelers planning to fly in the December holiday season will see even higher prices than usual. Seats are also disappearing far earlier this year.

While airlines often raise prices during peak travel periods, this year is expected to be tougher than most for deal-seeking consumers. In an effort to cut costs, a number of airlines are reducing capacity on domestic routes. Delta Air Lines is making big schedule changes on Dec. 1, as part of its move to cut flights by 15 percent to 20 percent. (See story on E1.) Northwest Airlines and US Airways are planning to fly fewer planes as well. The quirk of the calendar is also playing a role: Christmas and New Year's Day fall on Sundays this year, bunching up the peak travel window. When those holidays are mid-week, bookings are more diffuse, putting less pressure on prices for peak flights.

To make matters worse, many airlines have restricted the number of cheap tickets available during the holiday season. The upshot is that while in the past three years, consumers could still find bargain prices booking just a few weeks before busy holiday periods, this year many flights are already filling up three months before Christmas.

The lowest price AMR Corp.'s American Airlines offered nonstop from Boston to Orlando on Dec. 23 with a return Jan. 2 was $1,161 Monday on its Web site. The same trip flying two weeks earlier would cost only $205 round-trip. But the peak-period holiday flights — American has only one daily non-stop on the route in each direction — are mostly sold out already. Flight 1645 from Boston to Orlando on Dec. 23 showed only 18 of its 115 coach seats open for booking, according to American's Web site. "We are booked more than in the past" system-wide for peak holiday travel days, says a spokesman for American.

From Philadelphia to Cancun on Dec. 23, US Airways already has bookings for about half of its coach seats on its three non-stop flights, according to its seat maps. A round-trip with a return Jan. 2 on the non-stop flights was priced Monday at $1,096, according to Orbitz. Two weeks earlier, the trip is only $425 round-trip.

While fares for the holiday season are ballooning, prices have been inching up all year. Under intense financial pressure from the rise in fuel prices, airlines have been able to make 12 price increases stick since February.