Average Airport Rates Down $4.22 in 2015

In December, the average rate quotes were flat the first two weeks but dropped an average of $12 during the last two weeks of the month, according to The Tennant Group and Rate-Highway’s 50-City rate survey. The average rate for 2015 is down $4.22 from 2014.

by Staff

January 6, 2016

Average Airport Rates Down $4.22 in 2015 — Rate data provided by Rate-Highway, a leading provider of revenue management services for the auto rental industry. Rates are an average of aggregator/OTA rates for all vendors present in the markets listed on the date of the survey. These tables and graph show the average of all base rate quotes per day for an ICAR at the six or 50 airports shown, for arrivals 15 to 21 days ahead of the date of the survey, for two- and seven-day rentals.

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With the help of Jim Tennant of The Tennant Group and Michael Meyer of Rate-Highway Inc., we are conducting rate surveys on a weekly basis and providing analysis and comments where appropriate. We publish this monthly recap in our electronic edition and more comprehensive looks in the print editions.

The November nationwide weighted average ICAR quote was up slightly from a year ago for only the fourth time since we started collecting year-over-year quotes in 50 cities in June 2014. However, December turned down again, driven by sharp decreases in the last two weeks of the month.

The average for 2015 is down $4.22 from 2014 — and down $2.92 if we exclude the extraordinary results from July 2014.

As the table of weekly averages (above) shows, the first two weeks were essentially flat, but the last two weeks were down an average of over $12. These two weeks features quotes for pickup of an ICAR from January 2 to 15, 2016, at the top 50 airports — not an auspicious start to the new year!

Brand pricing is still showing interesting results. Hertz is the only one of the eight brands to be up in December and continues to be four to five dollars above Avis and National. Until recently the three top brands were within pennies of each other. The five smaller brands are all down in the ten dollar range from last year.