Debating about whether to pack up the family and fly to grandmother’s house for Thanksgiving this year? You’re not alone.

The usual good-advice messengers are already telling anyone who will listen that you’d better hurry and buy your airline tickets now for the holidays. That adage may be true if you must travel on specific dates. Ticket prices aren’t likely to go lower. On the other hand, it doesn’t look as if tickets are about to sell out soon. In fact, there are indications the numbers of passengers is declining faster than the airlines’ capacity cuts.

The Air Transport Association of America (ATA) is forecasting a 6.5 percent drop in passenger bookings over the Labor Day holiday, from Wednesday (Aug. 27) to Sept. 3, compared to last year. But the airlines’ cuts so far have eliminated about 2 percent of available seats. Remember, most of the announced cuts don’t take effect until after Labor Day.

That means airlines will be flying less full this Labor Day than they were last year. It’s also the first time since the year after the 9/11 terrorist attacks that Labor Day air passenger travel has declined, the ATA says. Every other year since then, it has gone up anywhere from 1 to 4 percent.

"Economic uncertainty and the heavy hit from sky-high energy prices mean that many vacation and business travelers are choosing to stay closer to home — if they go at all," said James C. May, president and CEO of ATA.

Another sign: A check last week found there were still plenty of available seats on flights going out of Tucson around Thanksgiving. Flights even on the busiest days — the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and the following Sunday — were not close to selling out.

Terry Trippler, a national aviation analyst who runs the website TripplerTravel.com, says how full planes are this Thanksgiving and for the December holidays may come down to some last-minute decisions by travelers — and it could hinge on the outcome of the presidential election.

"It’s simply an attitude," says Trippler and he blames it on how the economy is played in the media. Barack Obama’s goal is to portray the economy in a more negative light while John McCain has a more positive outlook.

"If McCain is elected I look for last-minute Thanksgiving bookings to do very well. Christmas bookings will also increase," Trippler said. "We will see if I am right but I ‘bet the rent’ I am."

That doesn’t mean there will be bargains to try to spur on sales. On average, domestic airline ticket prices were up 7.5 percent to 15.7 cents per air mile in July, compared to July 2007, according to the ATA. (But just to show how tough it has been for airlines to raise fares, they were down 3 percent from 16.2 cents per mile in June.)

On top of the fair increases, there are the newly-introduced fees airlines are charging for things that were once included in the ticket price. Those fees can easily add another $100 to the cost of a round-trip flight just for checking two pieces of luggage.

FareCompare.com, a consumer airline ticket research website, on Aug. 18 surveyed the 10 most popular airline destinations from Tucson looking for the lowest round-trip airfares for travel around Thanksgiving compared to what was being charged on Aug. 18, 2007.

Fares were lower this year to three destinations: Denver, down 14 percent to $178 this year; San Diego down 17 percent to $98 and Oakland was down 31 percent to $186. (The fares include tax but not other government and airport fees.)

To the other seven destinations — Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Chicago, New York, Seattle, Minneapolis-St. Paul and Dallas-Fort Worth — airfares are up anywhere from 13 percent to 184 percent. (The 184 percent is skewed because it is compared to a $98 round-trip promotional fare to Dallas that was available last year.)

Curiously, the average fare to the 10 destinations is up 20.8 percent, about the same percentage, 20.2 percent, of the reduction in seat capacity to the same destinations.

But otherwise there is no other correlation between the cutbacks and the fares. In fact, it still boils down to competition and demand.

The survey found fares were down to both Denver and San Diego but the number of available seats to Denver is up over last year and San Diego is unchanged. Fares were also down to Oakland, a destination which will no longer have non-stop flights after Nov. 2.

Otherwise fares are up regardless of what has happened to capacity. The lowest fare is up by 40 percent to New York, which had two non-stop flights a year ago but will have none this Thanksgiving. And the fare is up 19 percent to Seattle, where the number of available seats doubled when Alaska Airlines introduced a second daily non-stop flight this year.

Kayak loses an oar

When searching for low airfares these days, Tucsonans probably ought not use the meta-search website Kayak, or its corporate sibling Sidestep, because they are not showing fares on American Airlines.

The websites don’t show Southwest Airlines’ fares either and since it and American account for close to half of all passengers going out of Tucson International Airport, those are some mighty big holes in Kayak’s boat.

The dispute with American centers on the airline wanting Kayak to only display fares directly from American’s website and not the fares being shown by other websites such as Orbitz or CheapTickets.

Southwest takes an even harder stance. It won’t allow any consumer website to show its fares, even from its own website. It hasn’t been the least bit interested in having Kayak show its fares.

American has filed a lawsuit against Kayak to stake its claim. A notice on the Kayak website says it hopes to have the issue with American resolved soon.

Airport numbers down

Both Tucson International and Phoenix Sky Harbor airports are continuing to see fewer passengers this year.

Tucson saw 352,542 passengers in July, down 3.3 percent from July 2007 and the second consecutive month of declines. It was also the largest year-over-year falloff of any month in 2008. Much of that can be attributed to the pullout of JetBlue in May. Of the 19½ months JetBlue served Tucson, July 2007 was its busiest month.

Due to higher numbers earlier this year, year-to-date passenger traffic at Tucson International is up 1.2 percent to more than 2.6 million.

That’s not the case in Phoenix where the latest available statistics are through June, a month that saw a 6.2 percent drop in passengers compared to June 2007. Through the first six months of the year, Sky Harbor passenger numbers are down 2.5 percent to 20.9 million.

Contact David Hatfield at dhatfield@azbiz.com or (520) 295-4237. Inside Business Travel appears the fourth week of each month.