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Summer 2006 to be Busiest Air Travel Season Ever
Jun 6, 2006 - Linknet Places in the News
Grand Cayman Vacation - Cayman Island vacations. International prepaid phone cards - Low cost international prepaid phone cards. Brazil Eco Tours - Brazil Eco Vip trips to the most exotic places in Brazil. Cancun Resorts - Cancun Mexico hotels lets you find and book online vacation accommodations. Summer 2006 to be Busiest Air Travel Season Ever by Rick HendershotAir travel analysts continue to predict the summer of 2006 will be the busiest year ever for air travel. The general increase in demand will put a strain on airport facilities and hotel accommodation, which means that in all aspects of the air travel business there will be long lineups. Travelers will also be paying higher ticket prices than at any time since 2001. "For the airlines, it will be the best summer in a long time," Air Transport Association's chief economist John Heimlich said last week. "The caveats to that may be possible Transportation Security Administration staffing levels, convective weather, congestion and, again, it will be an all-time record for jet fuel prices. Yet from a demand perspective—and demand to me isn't just volume, it's the mix of volume and price—this will be the best position we've been in since summer 2000." According to the Air Transport Association commercial airlines will handle nearly 207 million passengers in the United States this year. That is a 1% increase over the summer of 2005 when the previous record of nearly 204.6 million was set. In domestic flights there will actually be a slight decrease, according to American Express ESkyGuide. They predict a decrease of 4% for the June-August period. Ticket prices have never quite recovered from their peek in 2000. For the first four months of 2006 ticket prices were about 13% lower than in the same period in 2000. Meanwhile jet fuel prices are up by 129% for the same period. This summer's rush of travelers will give the airlines and hotel chains plenty of excuses to raise prices. Business air fares are already up by about 20% over where they were 12 months ago.
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