Flying returns as travel favorite

With more people traveling, bookings are stronger than usual this year.
By JANE ENGLE
LOS ANGELES TIMES
If your vacation includes air travel this summer, prepare for crowded planes and airport delays. Finding a super-cheap fare could be tough.
The best advice: Book early and get to the airport early.
"It's a crazy year," said Amy Bohutinsky, spokeswoman for Hotwire.com, a discount travel Web site. "All of a sudden, demand is back. It's happened ... over the last couple of months." Searches on the site are up more than a third, and bookings are up by about 10 percent from last year, she said.
"We're seeing stronger-than-expected bookings," with several record-setting days, said Melissa Derry, product manager for Expedia, another travel Web site. Sales are usually slow before Memorial Day, she added -- but not this year.
The American Automobile Association recently forecast that 5.3 percent more of us would fly on Memorial Day weekend this year than last, and the Travel Industry Association of America said it expected a similar increase to carry through the summer.
The main reason for the uptick: Travel overall is up. More of us, industry experts say, seem determined to go on vacation after years of worrying about our finances and air security. As the economy has improved, more of us can afford and want to travel.
With airfares hovering near historic lows and the average U.S. price of gas surging recently to more than $2 a gallon, the math can favor flying too, at least for solo sojourns.
More passengers
Airports are showing strain from higher traffic. U.S. airlines in April carried nearly 12 percent more passengers than in April 2003, the Air Transport Association said.
More than a fifth of flights ran late in the first quarter this year, the Department of Transportation reported in May. The figure is near some of those logged in 2000, a record year.
To help travelers keep tabs on delays, the Federal Aviation Administration recently began a wireless service that links to daily alerts posted by airports and airlines; for details, go to www.faa.gov/wireless.
Security lines have also slowed at many airports, stretching to an hour or more, according to reports from media across the United States. A worried Transportation Security Administration, whose staff had been cut by Congress, is working to field more screeners.
Summer fares are running about the same or somewhat higher overall than last year, depending on the route -- and whom you talk to; official figures lag by several months. Predicting fares is tricky.
"It's a market that sits on the razor's edge all the time," said Ron Kuhlmann, vice president of Unisys R2A, an airline consulting firm in Oakland, Calif. Fares whipsaw in response to world events, competitive pressures and fickle fliers who book at the last minute, throwing off the airlines' sales projections.
"It's a lot harder to find that elusive good deal," said Hotwire's Bohutinsky. Sales can be fleeting. To keep on top of them, log onto sites such as www.smarterliving.com, which posts a useful roundup of travel deals.