Fare Wars

It's fare war season, with airlines touting MegaDeals and SuperSavings.While carriers typically offer a dozen major fare sales a year, summer ones are among the best.This year, with gasoline prices pushing up the cost of driving, more and more travelers are trolling for airfare bargains.With airline sales nearly as common as department store specials, passengers can expect deals to continue to crop up all summer, travel experts say."We're going to see a new fare war every two weeks or less," says Tom Parsons, editor of Best Fares Discount Travel magazine in Arlington, Texas.

A decision by British Airways to cut round-trip airfares to London by one-third sparked a trans-Atlantic fare war yesterday, as competing airlines rushed to slash their London-bound rates.Pan Am Corp., parent of Pan American World Airways, announced yesterday that it had "basically matched" the British Airways cuts announced Sunday, while TWA said it would cut in half fares to London from any U.S. airport also served by British Airways.In the Baltimore-Washington area, reservations agents for USAir Corp.

What began Monday as a regional skirmish between airlines escalated yesterday into a full-blown fare war when American and Delta said that they would offer discount prices after similar moves by USAir and United.Travelers who delayed booking their fall flights in hopes of such a development now will have their patience rewarded.The new discounts will be on sale through Oct. 31 and are good for travel between Sept. 4 and Dec. 15, with certain blackout dates around the Thanksgiving holidays.

GALVESTON, Texas -- With videotapes, flip-charts, enlargements of once-secret memos and thousands of tTC documents, armies of lawyers in U.S. District Court in Galveston are re-enacting the airline fare war of 1992.In an elegantly restored courtroom with carved wooden panels and silk drapes, Continental Airlines and Northwest Airlines are trying to draw blood, demonstrating that American Airlines engaged in "predatory pricing." That means setting fares so low that American would lose money, but so would its weaker rivals, who might be forced out of business.

Determined to hold onto its turf at Baltimore-Washington International Airport, USAir set off a new price war yesterday with Southwest Airlines.USAir announced that it would match Southwest's planned fares from BWI to Cleveland and Chicago, with new round-trip restricted fares of $49 and $89, respectively. In trying to spoil Southwest's much-ballyhooed arrival next month, USAir also increased flights and tacked on a new frequent-flier promotion."In every respect, USAir's moves are extremely aggressive," said Samuel Buttrick, an airline analyst with Kidder, Peabody & Co. in New York.

Thirty-two percent of U.S. adults took at least one flight in 1991, compared with 31 percent the year before, according to a Gallup survey commissioned by the Air Transport Association. Frequent fliers -- those who fly more than 10 times a year -- accounted for 7 percent of all 1991 passengers, but they took 40 percent of all flights. That's why airlines coddle them.The survey also showed that 46 percent of flights were taken for business reasons.Another survey sheds some light on how the recent fare wars fared.

Downloaded singles 1.Beautiful Girls, Sean Kingston 2.Stronger, Kanye West 3.The Way I Are, Timbaland featuring Keri Hilson and D.O.E. 4.Me Love, Sean Kingston 5.Ayo Technology, 50 Cent[ITUNES (AUG. 13)] Downloaded albums 1.Hairspray soundtrack, Various artists 2.Graduation (pre-order), Kanye West 3.Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace (pre-order), Foo Fighters 4.Coco, Colbie Caillat 5.High School Musical 2 soundtrack, Various artists[ITUNES (AUG. 13)] Downloaded TV episodes 1.Liquid Courage, Greek 2.Picking Teams, Greek 3.And Down the Stretch ..., Psych 4.Song Sung Bad, Hannah Montana 5.And My Paralyzing Fear of Death, Damages[ITUNES (AUG.

Trans World Airlines Inc. is about to land in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the second time in four years -- but this time it expects the visit to be brief.TWA, a once-proud trans-Atlantic carrier that has been hammered in recent years by a takeover fight, fare wars, an aging fleet and suffocating debt, is trying to take the first step toward sustained profits by slashing its $1.7 billion of long-term debt.Its proposal: TWA's creditors and public noteholders would forgive $500 million of the debt in exchange for more common stock in the nation's seventh-largest airline.

Blessed by the fiercest fare wars on the East Coast, Baltimore-Washington International Airport set an all-time record for passengers last year with a growth rate that was five times as high as the national average.More than 12.8 million passengers used state-owned BWI last year, an increase of 3 million passengers, or 35.8 percent, over the previous year. The tally far exceeded BWI's previous busiest year in 1989, when the number of passengers hit 10.4 million shortly before the recession and Persian Gulfwar caused the number of airline passengers to plummet.

More flights and lower fares continued to lure travelers to Baltimore-Washington International Airport in June, setting yet another monthly record with 1.1 million passengers.While discount fares are likely to start cropping up at other airports -- including BWI's competitor, Washington Dulles International Airport -- growth here showed little sign of slacking off.For the first half of 1994, nearly six million passengers traveled through the state-owned BWI, up 39.6 percent over the same period last year.