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To lure hesitant fliers back onto planes during much of the COVID-19 pandemic, the nation’s struggling airlines waived change fees, freed up middle seats to promote social distancing, extended expiration dates on loyalty reward points and cut airfares.
Now that new U.S. coronavirus cases are dropping and travel restrictions are being lifted, the country’s airlines are starting to act like, well, airlines again.
Air carriers have reintroduced change fees for the least expensive tickets, returned to filling the middle seats and once again imposed expiration dates for many loyalty reward programs. On average, domestic airfares are up 12% from full-year 2020 prices, according to industry data, and are expected to climb by the end of the year to 28% above the full-year 2020 prices.