Cheap holiday flights gobbled up

Approximately 21.7 million passengers will take to the sky during the 2005 Thanksgiving holiday, traditionally the busiest travel period of the year.

But for those procrastinators with roughly two weeks left to book a flight, travel officials say if they've waited until this late in the game to purchase turkey-day tickets, their credit card is in for its own mile-high rates.

"Those days go right away," said Sherry Dyer, co-owner of Salt Lake-based Dyer's International Travel. "Usually, if you don't have a major reservation by Labor Day, you're not going to get what you need. . . . There are seats left, if you're willing to pay for them. But they're at the premium rates."

Discount and bargain seats are near impossible to find now, particularly because numerous airlines are cutting down capacity by using smaller planes, dropping routes, flying less and even stopping service in some cities.

According to an analysis by consulting firm Sabre Airline Solutions for USA Today, ticket prices for peak Thanksgiving travel days are up 15 percent from last year.

Airline financial woes that have led to reductions in continental flying are the likely cause of the price increase, Sabre consultant Steven Hendrickson said.

"There are fewer seats in the market, and the airlines are filling their planes," he said.

It's the negative post-9/11 effect, in which the travel industry took a huge hit and many in the industry are still struggling to recuperate, Dyer said.

"Travel is up, and there are just not as many flights flying," said the 31-year travel industry veteran. "(Airlines) haven't put as many flights back into the system."

Although fewer flights and ever-decreasing seats mean pricey tickets, more Americans are traveling by air this year. The projected 21.7 million air passengers compares to 16.3 million passengers traveling last holiday season, according to the Air Transport Association, and translates into great news for the travel industry.

Thanksgiving 2004 was a milestone for the industry, still struggling from the 9/11 whammy. Last November, Americans took to the skies, streets and seas and broke the holiday travel record set in 2000, according to AAA.

"It's a very few number of days when you travel for the Thanksgiving holidays. There's a two-week time frame with Christmas. But Thanksgiving, it's Thursday to Sunday. That really is it. We always experience really, really heavy Thanksgiving travel," Dyer said.