Will fares go so high that only the rich can fly?

— -- Deregulation of the airline industry 30 years ago made air travel affordable to most Americans. Rising airfares threaten to again make flying a service for the affluent.

Airfares have risen this summer more than any year in the past quarter century, new studies by airfare experts show. The studies, done by Travelocity, FareCompare.com and Harrell Associates at USA TODAY's request, show that domestic fares this summer are up 12% to 15%, and on some routes, more than 200%.

"Consumers are already shell-shocked by higher prices, but their wallets are going to be hit harder than ever before on their next vacation or business trip," says Rick Seaney, CEO of FareCompare.com, which tracks airfares for consumers.

Airlines are raising fares to combat record jet-fuel prices, which have nearly doubled during the past 12 months. The fares often include fuel surcharges that can range from a few to hundreds of dollars, and a growing number of tickets include restrictions that require fliers to buy further in advance or stay a number of days at a destination. Fliers also face an escalating number of extra fees for roomy seats, checked bags, ticket changes and other services.

For a family of four, a cross-country flight this summer may cost about $1,000 more than last summer. In late July, for example, United Airlines' cheapest non-stop round-trip coach fare for travel in mid-August between San Francisco and Washington was $580, or $2,320 for four people, according to FareCompare.com. That's $920 more than the family would have paid United on that route last summer.

Higher airfares are causing vacationers and business travelers to cut back on air travel, and raising many companies' travel costs.

Robert Yodice, of Cleveland, flew to Las Vegas 10 times last year, but only twice this year. He says he's cut back because the round-trip fare is at least double the $200 to $300 he used to pay.

"With rising airfares, I've had to take a completely different approach to my leisure travel," says Yodice, who owns a TV production company. "There's a lot more time invested in researching better fares, looking at alternate airports and determining any potential savings from driving to an airport that may not necessarily be closest to home."

Changing perspective on 'cheap'

An extreme example of the new price of air travel is found on the Chicago-Minneapolis/St. Paul route. On July 10, US Airways' lcc cheapest fare for travel at the end of the month was $406 — a 276% increase on last July's $108 fare, according to FareCompare.com. United Airlines' uaua cheapest fare was $376 — a 382% increase on last July's $78. Northwest Airlines' nwa cheapest fare was $140 — up 79%.

United spokeswoman Robin Urbanski says the $78 fare last year was a special sale price in line with competitors' prices.

Such bargain airfares may be hard to find this year, but they haven't disappeared and can often be found on airline websites.

Discount carrier Spirit offers $19 one-way fares on its website for August travel between Fort Lauderdale and Tampa, Orlando or the Bahamas. Spirit also has $89 fares from Boston to Fort Lauderdale.

Bigger airlines also offer some bargains. American Airlines' amr cheapest round-trip coach fare last week for travel in September between Kansas City and West Palm Beach, Fla., with a stop in Dallas/Fort Worth, was $120, plus $42 in taxes and fees.

Besides Spirit, the lowest fares are usually found on routes where Southwest luv flies, says airfare expert Tom Parsons of Bestfares.com, an online ticket wholesaler that identifies fare bargains for consumers. Competing airlines match Southwest's low fares, but they charge more fees for checking bags and other services, he says.

Low fares can also be found on routes flown by AirTran aai, JetBlue jblu and Frontier, says Bob Harrell, head of Harrell Associates, a consulting firm that focuses on airlines and fares.

Still, even low-fare airlines are raising prices. Southwest said recently that its average fare in the second quarter was $114.48, up 8.4% from the same period last year. JetBlue's average fare rose 13.1% to $138.13.

More increases are expected in the fall, when carriers say they will reduce seat capacity on many routes and stop flying some others. Some airlines have already reduced capacity up to 10%, and further cuts — up to 15% — are planned for the fall.

Reductions are needed because rising prices mean less passenger demand, American Airlines CEO Gerard Arpey said in a recent conference call announcing the carrier's second-quarter financial results. American "has initiated or participated in over 30 domestic fare and surcharge increases" this year, he said.

On 21 occasions this year, Seaney says, one of these six airlines — American, United, Delta dal, Continental cal, Northwest and US Airways — raised round-trip fares more than $10 on two-thirds of its routes, and 15 times the other airlines matched the fares. In 2007, an airline in that group raised fares 23 times, and the other carriers matched 17 times.

If oil prices, which recently have fallen to the mid-$120s a barrel, rise to $150 a barrel, the cost of jet fuel could increase ticket prices to a level only the affluent could afford, says Seaney.

"While travelers are no doubt feeling pinched — especially in light of rising food and gasoline prices — it is difficult to blame airlines for raising prices in order to cover costs that are, by and large, beyond their control," says Darin Lee, an airline economics expert at LECG, a consultant in Cambridge, Mass.

Consumers have enjoyed cheap fares since the airline industry was deregulated in 1978. Stiff competition has kept fares low, but it has also driven many airlines out of business and forced others to struggle for profitability. Faced with record fuel prices, airlines this year may lose up to $10 billion, says the Air Transport Association (ATA), an airline trade group.

"We have had our fun; the party is over," Ray Neidl, an industry analyst for Calyon Securities, told Boeing executives last month. "We have had cheap flights, and now it is time to pay the bill."

Leisure travelers have been hit with some of the biggest fare increases, airfare studies show.

•The average cheapest coach fare in June and July was 16% more expensive than last summer, according to Harrell Associates, which tracked published fares each Monday from June 16-July 7 for six airlines' top revenue-producing domestic routes. Those fares are highly restricted, with advance-purchase and minimum-stay requirements and a penalty for itinerary changes.

Combining those fares with the least expensive coach fares generally used by business travelers — refundable fares booked no more than three days before departure with no minimum-stay requirements — the average cheapest coach fares this summer are 12% higher than last summer.

•FareCompare.com data examined 145 domestic routes, comparing airlines' cheapest coach ticket prices on Thursday, July 10, with those of Thursday, July 12, 2007. Of 937 fare listings, more than three-quarters showed a fare increase from a year earlier; 54% showed a fare increase of at least 20%. The comparison excluded Southwest Airlines, which doesn't list its fares in all computer reservations systems.

•Travelocity, which sells millions of tickets annually, says domestic tickets sold through May for travel between Memorial Day and Labor Day averaged $366. That's a 15% increase on last summer's average of $318, says Travelocity editor Amy Ziff.

A 12% or 15% increase is huge compared with year-over-year pricing data compiled by the ATA. Such a large increase has not happened since 1980, when the price of tickets sold rose 28% from 1979.

In 11 of 27 years since 1980, the price of tickets sold declined from the previous year. Only two years had a price increase of more than 7%.

Trips not taken

Many vacationers are swallowing the fare increases, but others are postponing trips, going to cheaper destinations or planning differently.

Tiffany West, of Tacoma, Wash., planned to go to Hawaii last May with her husband, Jeff, and says she usually pays $500 to $700 for a round-trip ticket. But the cheapest tickets were more than $1,000, so she postponed the trip until September, when a $525 fare was available.

Instead of paying the high airfares to London, Paris or Rome this summer, many vacationers are booking less expensive or better-value flights to Central America, South America or Asia, says Ziff. "They're starting to look at destinations like Buenos Aires, where you can have a relatively European experience and the dollar goes further," she says.

Some international fares are lower this summer, but they have high fuel surcharges that make the total price higher than last summer, Parsons says.

For example, he says, the cheapest round-trip fare on American Airlines last week for September travel between Dallas and London was $453, plus a $426 fuel surcharge, for a total of $879. Last summer, the fare was $476, plus a $130 fuel surcharge, or $606 total.

Restricting business travel

The airfare increases are also affecting business. Of 55 corporate travel managers who responded to a mid-July survey by the Association of Corporate Travel Executives, more than half said rising airfares have caused their companies to cut back on the number of business trips. The ACTE represents 2,500 travel managers and suppliers.

Higher airfares may add "tens of millions of dollars" to the travel budgets of Fortune 500 companies that spend at least $100 million on airfares per year, says Hervé Sedky, a vice president at American Express Business Travel.

Many business travelers buy tickets at the last minute and are unable to take advantage of cheaper, advance-purchase fares. Those last-minute, "walk-up" fares are also rising.

For a one-way New York-Los Angeles ticket on Tuesday, for example, Delta Air Lines' cheapest "Y" fare — an industry classification for an unrestricted, full-price coach fare — cost $969, plus an $85 fuel surcharge, says Parsons. That's more than 40% higher than last year, when the price was $754 with no fuel surcharge.

A growing number of companies have begun requiring approval for all air travel to company meetings, training sessions, conferences and conventions, says ACTE executive director Susan Gurley. Some companies are asking employees to share hotel rooms on business trips.

The companies that have been hit hardest by airfare increases are those with a large volume of travel to Europe, Gurley says. Some have reported hundreds of thousands of dollars in increased travel expenses, and some no longer allow employees to fly to Europe on business- or first-class tickets.

Small companies have also had to adjust.

Faith Varwig, who runs an aviation security consulting company in St. Louis, says the price of tickets to some cities has doubled or tripled. "We are doing more teleconferencing and trying to reduce trips to client sites," she says.

Wendy Desabaye runs a consulting business in Boston that plans corporate meetings for companies based in New England. She says rising airfares have caused companies to stop scheduling meetings outside the region.

"I've been in business 10 years, and I've planned more meetings this year in Boston than in the past 10 years," Desabaye says. "Instead of requesting meetings in Hawaii and other faraway places, my clients are booking meetings where their employees can arrive by car or train."