Following the news on Friday about five major carriers increasing the air fare, the shares of U. S. airlines increased. The fare rise was not shown by low-cost carriers.

Rick Seaney, Chief Executive of FareCompare. com said, “Continental Airlines and Delta Air Lines matched a $10 round-trip air-fare hike Friday that was initiated by UAL Corp's United Airlines on Wednesday night, according to American Airlines, a unit of AMR Corp, and US Airways also lifted prices on Thursday”.

Greater traffic and a growing demand especially from profitable business travelers was reported in recent weeks by the airline industry. After earlier punching a year-high of $6.91, US Airways climbed more than 6% to $6.73 on the New York Stock Exchange.

An increase of 4% or 77 cents, to $19.63 in continental shares in afternoon trading was recorded and Delta shares increased 3% to $12.18. On Nasdaq, united shares were up 1% to $15.83 and reached a year-high of $15.98.

According to the U. S. Department of Transportation’s Air Travel Consumer Report Delta Air Lines ranked in the middle of the pack for on-time arrivals in 2009, but Comair was almost last. As stated by the report, 78.6% of on-time arrival rate was recorded for Delta in 2009 ranking it 12th of 19 airlines for the full year. With an on-time arrival rate of 69%, Comair was ranked last where as an average of US came out to be 79.5%.