$1,000 domestic airfares may keep travelers from flying

— -- To many American leisure travelers, a $1,000 round-trip airline ticket might conjure a dream vacation to Rome, Rio de Janeiro or Sydney.

Yet, this fall, especially during the holiday crunch, Americans face a greater chance of paying $1,000 just to fly to Ithaca, N.Y., Santa Barbara, Calif., or Raleigh, N.C. In coach. Excluding the cost of checking a single bag.

To counter jet-fuel prices that hit new records for most of this year until recently, airlines have been slashing domestic capacity by reducing frequencies, pulling out of airports and dropping unprofitable routes. With fewer seats to sell and, until recently, steady demand, the airlines have been bolder with pricing.

According to Sabre Airline Solutions' study of hundreds of thousands of tickets bought through September for Thanksgiving-period travel, 3.8% of round-trip tickets that consumers bought cost $1,000 or more — nearly double last year's percentage. Another 5.2% of tickets purchased cost at least $900 round trip — also nearly double last year's share, the study shows.

At a time of mounting economic insecurity, $1,000 could be the point where consumers revolt — and some already have.

"It's going to be the tipping point that's going to change travel," says Susan Tanzman, president of Martin's Travel & Tours in Los Angeles, who's already seen customers drop travel plans because of $1,000 airfares.

Bonnie McKenna of Houston, a retiree and avid deep-sea diver, says she wouldn't pay it to fly within the USA. "Heck, I can go to Indonesia for that much money," she says.

Americans may have to get used to domestic fares approaching $1,000, whether they want to enjoy a tropical holiday in Hawaii or a modest Thanksgiving with relatives in Connecticut.

And growth of big-ticket fares is forcing many families to make choices this year, says Michael McCall, a marketing professor at Ithaca College.

"If you think, $1,000 for four days, that's $250 a day," he says. "Is the family worth $250 a day?"

McCall's familiar with those difficult decisions. This Thanksgiving will be his family's first without their eldest son, a junior at Arizona State. A ticket from Phoenix to Ithaca, N.Y., would cost around $1,200, McCall says, and his son preferred they spend the money on something else, such as tuition for him and his younger brother, who attends Michigan State.

Almost all of 50 travelers who replied to a USA TODAY inquiry about whether they'd pay $1,000 to fly within the USA said no. Most said they'd either change their plans to get a cheaper fare or cancel their trip.

"There's some threshold that you just don't want to cross," says Pat McGuckin of Sherman, Ill. McGuckin and his wife, Carol, regularly fly to Ireland and Scotland, and when they see $1,000 fares, they wait until fares drop. He says he wouldn't pay it for a domestic flight.