CHICAGO -- Air travelers, who have endured full flights and a 15 percent increase in ticket prices this year, are exacting revenge with aggressive searches for deals that analysts say are beginning to force down prices.
Airlines use powerful computers to figure out just how much passengers are likely to pay for any given flight at various times of the day. For the past year or so, they have been able to readily increase fares, in part because of the strong economy. Planes have been packed lately, too, which gives the industry more power to raise prices.
But a recent drop in fares suggests that many travelers have had enough. They are balking at paying the higher prices and are scouring the Internet more to find cheaper fares.
That may be a small comfort to the 25 million people who packed into full planes to join families for Thanksgiving this season. But it is a sign that the cost, if not the hassle, of flying may be easing.
None of this is good news for the airlines, of course, which always struggle to turn a profit. Airlines have said for some time that Internet shopping has made it harder for them to raise fares. Travelers have never had much sympathy for the industry's financial plight, and they often delight in finding new tricks to discover low fares.
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Such hard-nosed shopping is on the rise. About 25 percent of air travelers consult online newsletters and other sources of special deals before buying, up from 17 percent last year, according to Henry Harteveldt, a travel analyst at Forrester Research. And 17 percent of travelers use Web sites like kayak.com, itasoftware.com or sidestep.com, which scour other Internet sites for travel deals.
"Consumers have access to more and more information," Harteveldt said. "It's exactly what airlines don't want consumers to have."
When airlines put their fare information online years ago, their main goal was to cut out traditional travel agents to save the commissions they paid them. But many airlines were surprised to learn how much time consumers were willing to spend shopping for fares.
Steve Kronick, an emergency room physician in Ann Arbor, Mich., said he searched Internet sites for weeks this summer to find affordable seats to take his wife and two children to Seattle to see friends this week. They paid $1,400 for four roundtrip tickets on Northwest Airlines after Kronick consulted farecast.com, which tries to tell consumers the best time to buy an airfare.
"I don't know how accurate it is," Kronick said. "But it makes you feel better."
