Tourists still taking flight

Check out this story from The News-Press, for all those who were thinking that fewer and fewer folks are going on vacation because of the expense.

'Procrastinators are in luck this year when it comes to holiday air fares — especially in Southwest Florida, travel experts say.
This season’s low prices popped up in a hurry as the price of oil crashed this fall, said Rick Seaney, chief executive of the travel Web site FareCompare.com.
“I can’t even remember a crazier fall and winter,” Seaney said. Airlines are trying to loosen the pocketbooks of people frozen in fear by this year’s financial turmoil.
“This is really, really good for air travel consumers,” Seaney said. “The airlines are trying to get ’em off the fence. They traded an oil crisis for a global economic crisis.”
Nowhere is that more true than Southwest Florida, Seaney said, noting that a typical flight from New York City to Southwest Florida International Airport would have cost $400 to $600 in October but is now in the $250 to $350 range.
Carol Obermeier, the Lee County Port Authority’s director of aviation market development, said the season’s off to a strong start at Southwest International.
“For the next two or three weeks out the bookings look really solid,” Obermeier said. But the situation is so volatile it’s hard to make predictions much past that. Typically, Obermeier said, business at the airport slows in January.
“Christmas is over, everyone’s back in school,” she said. Then, as the winter tourist season kicks into gear in February, the number of flights and passengers will go back up.
The airlines aren’t dialing back their service here as they are in most Florida markets, Obermeier said. In the week ending Dec. 12, there were 210,874 seats on 1,627 flights compared to 190,000 seats on 1,472 flights in the same week last year, she said
“Compared to December 2007, we’re looking to be up in flights 10 percent and in seats by 3 percent,” Obermeier said. “We’re the only one up in capacity and seats.”
For example, Fort Lauderdale is down 9 percent and Tampa is down 11.5 percent in flights, Obermeier said. That’s a marker of the confidence the airlines have in this area’s growth potential, she said. “Carriers look at those numbers: Who’s coming here, where are they coming from? So they make that decision” on how many flights to have.
Kinda makes you think, no?

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