Airlines struggle to stay aloft as oil prices dip
Northwest ups its roundtrip airfare by $80 for more than 4,000 city pairs
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Airline stocks were struggling to gain altitude Thursday as benchmark oil prices fell slightly.
Meanwhile, after a one-month break from airfare hikes, Northwest Airlines raised its domestic roundtrip airfare by $80 on over 4,000 city pairs, according to data provided by FareCompare.com.
"A quick check of Northwest hub cities shows significant airfare increase activity in Detroit with hardly any hike activity in Minneapolis or Memphis," said FareCompare.com's Rick Seaney.
Travelers will not have to wait to see if the other network carriers match the Northwest move, or if the airline will have to rollback the increase in order to remain competitive.
At last check, the Amex Airline Index added 1.6% to 20.94 points with 12 of its 14 components in the green. However, lacking a strong compass in energy trading, most of the share gains were marginal. The September contract was down 47 cents at last check to $126.27 a barrel. See Future Movers.
All the network carriers were climbing, with US Airways up about 4% to $5.05, United parent UAL Corp added almost 3% to $8.10, and Northwest rose 1.8% to $8.86.
Declining were TAM SA , down 1.6% to $20.51, and Gol Linhas, shed 1.4% to $10.35.
Source: http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/northwest-ups-its-roundtrip-airfare/story.aspx?
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