United sees fare gains as cheapest tickets become scarce

United Continental is seeing improved average airfares as US rivals offer fewer bargain-basement ticket prices. “It’s not really that fares have gone up much, it’s that the $25, $30 fares that were prevalent a year ago are much more narrow today," United President Scott Kirby said Tuesday. The improvement is helping United weather higher fuel costs, Kirby said. The carrier is also benefiting from robust business demand and consumers feeling “pretty flush", he said. “Both the pricing and the demand environment have just gotten stronger as we’ve gone through the quarter," Kirby said. “As fuel prices have gone up, the pricing environment has changed.”<br/>