Alison Sider

Just adding an extra surcharge to cover the cost of fuel.

There also, there might be fewer flight options.

We're starting to see airlines cut back capacity because they're just no longer going to fly unprofitable routes.

A route that wasn't making money

You know, at $2 a gallon, jet fuel is certainly not going to be making money at $4 a gallon.

You know, I think it really depends what else is going on in the macro economy.

Right now, airlines are saying the economy still seems fairly healthy, especially for kind of the upper echelon of consumers that a lot of the airlines have been focused on.

You know, the people who will pay to sit in premium seats or business class seats, they're still wanting to get out and travel at the moment.

You know, but we've had airline executives acknowledge in the last couple of days, like at some point, you know, fares are up 20%.

And it may go up from here.

Like, at some point, you have to imagine that does start to cut into demand.

They haven't seen it yet, but that is what you would expect at a certain point, that people will think twice about a trip or if they're feeling less well off in other ways.

But so much depends on the rest of the economy.

Yeah, and right now the airlines are saying, like, yeah, we think it will come, that they're, you know, it would make sense to us if people pulled back given these higher prices, but we're just not seeing it.

So until we get to that point, I think they're feeling pretty good, some of them.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

For now, airlines are saying their bookings, they're really happy with them.

But we could start seeing that show up more and more as the summer goes on.

And another place that this might show up more, and we'll hear more from the budget airlines as they report their earnings, they really target a customer that is a little bit more price sensitive.