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ByScottMayerowitz TheAssociatedPress ABOARD AMERICAN AIR- LINES FLIGHT 1223 Air- line fare wars are making a comeback. Don't expect widespread sales or cheap flights home for Thanksgiving. But a number of cities are see- ing ridiculously low prices at off-peak hours — prices the industry has spent the years trying to eliminate. Fliers have been able to fly Chicago to Boston for $80 roundtrip, San Fran- cisco to Las Vegas for $67 roundtrip and New York to Los Angeles, with a con- nection, for $150 roundtrip. "This is the big break consumers have been wait- ing for in response to lower fuel prices," says Seth Ka- plan, managing partner of industry newsletter Airline Weekly. The price of oil is at the lowest level in six and a half years and the in- dustry is saving billions of dollars on fuel, giv- ing airlines leeway to cut fares but still post healthy profits. Airlines have also added larger, more effi- cient planes to their fleets while packing more seats into existing jets. So, while the number of domestic flights is down slightly over the past 12 months, there are now 3.4 percent more seats for sale — too many to meet the demand in all cities. To fill those extra seats, airlines have had to offer discounts. Still, airlines are being very selective. Forget find- ing a deal for busy holidays or on Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays when business travelers fly. The best prices are for flights on tradition- ally slow days like Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday. And it helps if Southwest Airlines, Spirit Airlines or Frontier Airlines flies the route. For instance, Frontier re- cently had a sale for mem- bers of its club who pay an annual $50 fee. Tickets were being offered for $15 one-way including taxes. American Airlines and — to a lesser extent — Delta Air Lines and United Air- lines are matching some of the discount fares. By do- ing so, they actually un- dercut the ultra-low-cost carries because Spirit and Frontier charge customers extra to use overhead bag- gage bins or to have a drink of water. "They're trying to force them out of the market and they have the power to do this because they are mak- ing record profits," says George Hobica, founder of travel deal site Airfare- Watchdog.com. Spirit and Frontier each carries less than 2 percent of all domestic passen- gers. American, United and Delta made $6.6 billion in combined profits during the first half of this year, so they afford to fight back on routes such as Chicago to Atlanta. American spokesman Casey Norton says the air- line "constantly looks at how we compete against a wide variety of airlines — from low cost carriers to premium global brands." Delta and United de- clined to comment. How- ever, Delta has expanded its "Basic Economy" fare to more than 450 markets. Fliers booking these tick- ets typically save $15 each way, but are not given ad- vanced seat assignments, can't cancel or change the flight and are last to board. Fare wars were destruc- tive to the industry in the 1980s. Airlines were fo- cused on being the larg- est carrier on a route, even though it often meant los- ing money. Today's airline industry is more disciplined, so the fare wars cause much less damage. The airlines still collect substantial fares on highly-profitable busi- ness routes and for holiday travel. Additionally, they take in billions in dollars fees for checked baggage fees and other things that were included in the ticket price back in the 1980s. Even passengers un- able to take advantage of today's bargain-basement deals are getting a tiny bit of relief. The average cost of a roundtrip domestic ticket, including taxes, purchased during the first seven months of this year was $494.12. That's down $5.41, or 1.1 percent,from thesame period last year, accord- ing to the Airlines Report- ing Corp., which processes ticket transactions for air- lines and travel agencies. Prices are still higher than they were in 2011, 2012 and 2013, even when ad- justed for inflation. And the small drop in ticket prices is nothing compared to the 31-percent savings airlines have seen on their fuel bills since the start of this year. One city having an out- sized impact on fares is Dallas, where a federal law that banned most long flights from Dallas Love Field was lifted in October. Led by Southwest Air- lines, the Dallas market has seen an 8.6 percent increase in seats for the 12 months ending in Au- gust, more than double the growth for the entire country. TRAVEL INDUSTRY By Joan Lowy The Associated Press WASHINGTON More jobs and cheaper gasoline come with a big, honking down- side: U.S. roads are more clogged than ever now that the recession is in the rear- view mirror. Commuters in Washing- ton, D.C., suffer the most, losing an average of 82 hours a year to rush-hour slowdowns, a new study finds. Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York come next on the list of ur- ban areas with the longest delays. But the pain reaches across the nation. Overall, American mo- torists are stuck in traffic about 5 percent more than they were in 2007, the pre- recession peak, says the re- port from the Texas A&M Transportation Institute and INRIX Inc., which an- alyzes traffic data. Four out of five cities have now surpassed their 2007 congestion. Rounding out the Top 10 worst commuting cities are San Jose, Boston, Seattle, Chicago, Houston and Riv- erside-San Bernardino. Cities with fast-growing economies and the most job growth are the most plagued by traffic. Other factors: Urban populations are increasing and lower fuel prices are making driv- ing less expensive, so more people are taking to city roads. Congestion increased in 61 of the nation's 101 largest cities from 2012 to 2013, the data showed. The following year, nearly all cities — 95 out of 101 — experienced greater congestion. The findings are based on federal data about how many cars are on the roads and on traffic speed data collected by INRIX on 1.3 million miles of urban streets and highways. The growth is outpacing the nation's ability to build the roads, bridges, trains and other infrastructure to handle all these people on the move. Congress has kept federal transporta- tion programs teetering on the edge of insolvency for nearly eight years because lawmakers have been un- willing to raise the federal gas tax and haven't found a politically palatable alter- native to pay for needed im- provements. Frustrated by Wash- ington's inaction, nearly a third of states have ap- proved measures this year that could collectively raise billions of dollars for trans- portation through higher fuel taxes, vehicle fees and bonds. But that's just a down payment on decades of delayed maintenance, re- pairs and replacements. "Our growing traffic problem is too massive for any one entity to handle — state and local agencies can't do it alone," said Tim Lomax, a co-author of the report. The report recom- mends a mix of solutions, including making existing road and transit systems more efficient, encourag- ing more flexible work schedules, adding capac- ity to high-growth travel corridors, and creating more high-density neigh- borhoods where homes, of- fices, stores and other de- velopment can be reached through walking, biking or public transit. Transportation analyst Alan Pisarski said the na- tion missed a "tremendous opportunity" to catch up on building additional trans- portation capacity during the recession, when con- struction costs plummeted. "We didn't take advantage of it and now we're back in the soup again," he said. The national aver- age time that commut- ers wasted stuck in traf- fic last year was 42 hours, about the same as in 2007 and more than twice the de- lay in 1982, when the trans- portation institute first be- gan assessing urban mobil- ity. But because there are so many more commuters to- day and far more conges- tion in off-peak hours, to- tal delay across the coun- try has increased over 2007. Overall, Americans expe- rienced 6.9 billion hours of traffic delays in 2014 com- pared to 6.6 billion in 2007 and 1.8 billion in 1982. The problem has become so bad in major urban ar- eas that drivers have to plan for more than twice as much travel time as they would normally need to ac- count for the possibility of congestion delays caused by bad weather, collisions, construction zones and other impediments, the re- port said. CHEAPER GASOLINE Yo u can b la me t he b ee pi ng economy for worst traffic ever JOSELUISMAGANA—THEASSOCIATEDPRESS Traffic congestion nationally reached a new peak last year and is greater than ever before, according to a report by the Texas A&M Transportation Institute and INRIX Inc. ELAINE THOMPSON — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Colin Drummond, 4, pushes luggage from behind as he walks with family members to check-in a relative for an Alaska Airlines flight at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport in SeaTac, Wash. Deals pop up as airlines wage limited fare wars 1/8 Pg.................$199.00 1/4 Pg.................$325.00 Half Pg...............$485.00 Full Pg................$765.00 Inside Front........................$1150.00 Inside Back........................$1015.00 Back Cover........................$1275.00 Center Double Truck..........$2175.00 New features on the wonders of fall, winter and spring in "the Tehama Country," for residents and visitors. 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