All major domestic airlines just increased their airfares by $3

It turns out lower fuel prices don't lower the cost of airplane tickets. There's not much the rest of the world can do about it but accept the price change, but we did find a silver lining.

It started with Delta adding $3 to one way flights, followed by Southwest (a bit surprisingly) and inevitably matched by American, United and JetBlue.

According to this article on TravelPulse, "...having a price change that is matched by every major carrier in the country in such a short amount of time is rare."

Rare, but true. And, as mergers continue to reduce the number of US carriers (even between Southwest and budget airlines like AirTran), the trend of lessened competition and higher prices could progress in the future.

However, the good news is that competition is as high as ever on high traffic domestic routes, which has actually resulted in lower fares, the most significant gap being 24% cheaper than the prior year.

So... there's that!