American boosts airfares; other major airlines follow

NEW YORK — American Airlines sparked a new round of widespread airfare increases today by raising U.S. round-trip prices $20, the biggest in a recent series of hikes carriers have pushed through as oil prices surged.

The nation's biggest carrier said it raised fares in an attempt to recover some of the costs associated with the rising price of crude oil and jet fuel.

Delta Air Lines and Alaska Airlines followed with their own increases today, according to data provided by airline price tracking Web site FareCompare.com. AirTran Airways spokeswoman Judy Graham-Weaver said the low-cost carrier raised its fares Wednesday and did not have immediate plans to raise them further. She said the move was "purely because of such record high fuel costs."

The latest round of fare hikes is the industry's seventh since Labor Day, and the largest of those in dollar terms, said Rick Seaney, chief executive of FareCompare.com.

"This last two months have been unprecedented, and a lot of it has to do with the unprecedented price of fuel," he said.

Recent fare increases, such as one launched be Continental Airlines last week, had raised most ticket prices by only half as much. Major carriers typically follow their competitors in raising prices within a matter of days, if not hours.

Airlines have consistently cited increasing fuel prices as justification for higher fares, and industrywide efforts to trim capacity have helped those fare hikes stick. Fuel is one of the industry's biggest costs.

The Air Transport Association, the industry's main trade group, said today that higher fuel prices drove second-quarter costs 5.6 percent higher — more than twice the rate during the same period a year earlier.