There's more to this that you think.
I suspect that Southwest fares in 2007 are going way up. Why? Because airline fuel futures that were at really low $$ prices are expired/expiring in 2007. One way the airline can preoccupy travelers is to throw a new reservation scheduling system down. For those of us that are into analysis, we are too busy trying to get the 3 month game down.. and it'll take our focus off the fact that airfares are way up compared to pre 2006.
If you travel for business...and you take the same time/date routine...over time when you book things way in advance you get to know what "your" fare is. You'd see a fuel increase passed onto customers...really easy to see it. With the 'mad scramble' even at 89 days, 88 days, the inventory is going to fill much faster and you'll attribute the higher fares to the evaporating inventory and not necessarily to higher fuel costs.
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