If your travel plans are after Aug. 21 and you can wait until at least June 19 to book your travel; our crystal ball suggests that you wait if you are flying on a route served by Southwest or AirTran.
Our crystal ball on big airfare drops for late August, September and October, and maybe even part of November is telling us you may just want to wait until June 19, maybe even June 26, 2012, to purchase your airline ticket.
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The primary reason for this prediction is we expect Southwest Airfares and their new acquisition of AirTran to offer a whopper of an airfare sale to celebrate their 41st anniversary.
Some short haul flights up to 450 miles one-way could be cut in half. You could see airfares as low as $50 to $60 one-way, with all taxes, for travel up to 450 miles one-way. Air travel distances one-way between 451 to 1,250 miles could drop to $90 to $100 each way. For flights that are longer than 1,250 miles, we could see airfares as low as $140 to $150 one-way for coast to coast travel.
The total number of USA cities currently served by both Southwest and Airtran is approximately 100 cities.
So we think you should gamble and wait. Not only could you see more travel days to fly on the cheap, but the price cuts could be tremendous.
While it is rare that our crystal ball is wrong, but let's say it is, you will still have over 60 days or more to book that late summer or fall travel deal.
Either way with airfares now priced at peak summer rates through October 31, 2012, we expect airfares to come down any way when the family travel period ends.
Remember many schools in the Midwest return back to school around August 20, 2012 and some East Coast schools will begin around September 4, 2012. Once the family travel season ends, the airlines will need to offer lower airfares and more days of the week that you can travel on to qualify for the lowest airfares.
Even if we are wrong about the potential sale with Southwest and AirTran that will be matched by all the other USA airlines, we will still be right on lower airfares for fall travel compared to what we are seeing now for summer. Let's hope our crystal ball is correct and we get that whopper of an airfare sale in June!
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