Ladies and gentlemen, we officially have an airfare war!  Earlier today, American Airlines countered the $25 airfare sale from Southwest Airlines (which we mentioned yesterday) by offering a $25 national 4th Quarter Sale of its own.  Jen Leo of The Los Angeles Times investigated both sales and has this comparison:airfare_wars_090203_mn

“The main difference I found when looking for flights on American is that it doesn’t spell out where you’ll find the savings. Southwest very clearly shows which destinations you could get for $25, $50, $75 or $100 each way. But when I got to the American Airlines website, I had to just type in destinations and guess.  That said, when I applied routes similar to the $25 sale on Southwest, I was able to find the same prices on American. For example, it was easy to find $25 fares between Los Angeles (LAX) and San Francisco (SFO). American is offering the same dates for travel — Monday through Saturday. Prices are each way based on round-trip purchase, and pre tax.”

AirTran also has one-way sale prices of $39 on short routes in an offer that ends Nov. 10th.  Meanwhile, JetBlue and Frontier Airlines are matching sale prices on competitive routes.

Here’s some more travel news you can use:

  • US Airways will trim 1,000 jobs, or about 3.1% of its total work force and cut flights, focusing on hub cities where it stands to make a profit.  The company said today it would concentrate on four hubs – Charlotte, N.C., Philadelphia, Phoenix and the District of Columbia, as well as its hourly shuttle service between New York’s LaGuardia Airport, Boston and Washington’s Ronald Reagan airport.
  • The New York Times’ “In Transit” blog notes that you should be watching for deals to Kingston, Jamaica from JetBlue later this week when the airline begins service there on Oct. 30.
  • The federal government has grounded the two pilots who overshot a Northwest Airlines plane by 150 miles into Wisconsin last week.  The FAA has revoked the licenses of flight captain Tim Cheney of Gig Harbor Wash., and first officer Richard Cole of Salem, Ore.  They have 10 days to ask the National Transportation Safety Board for their licenses back.  And if the board says no, they can try to get new licenses in a year.