December airport rate quotes were down $1.02 nationwide from a year ago. With year-to-year comparisons from down $6.11 in January to up to $5.48 in September, the last three months of 2016 were relatively stable.
November rates are up $.05 over November 2015, while 12 months to November averaged a small $0.31 decrease.
After two months of significant rate quote increases over the previous year, airport rates for October were down $0.65 or about 1.5%, almost flat year-over-year. Rates turned down for the middle two weeks in October, but they were up again the last week of the month.
Airport rates for September are up $5.48 year-over-year, the largest increase since July 2014. But the weekly rates suggest it’s not yet a guarantee that rates are on a long-term upward trend: the rates were up mid-month and then flattened out the last two weeks.
August rate quotes showed some strength, up $2.81 or 7% from August 2015. Hertz and National had the highest weekly average rates when comparing the eight major brands.
In February, the average airport rate quote was only down $1.42 (2.8%) from February 2015, according to The Tennant Group and Rate-Highway’s 50-City rate survey. Rates in the Northwest and Midwest regions were up, while the Northeast was down $9.82.
In January, all five regions experienced drops in airport rates, but the Southeast and Northeast were both down by double digits, according to The Tennant Group and Rate-Highway’s 50-City rate survey. The average rate for January was down $6.11.
With the help of Jim Tennant of The Tennant Group and Michael Meyer of Rate-Highway, we took a look at recent rental car quotes at the Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport (PHX) to see what effect the Super Bowl crowds had on rates.
In September’s 50-city survey, rate quotes for the top 50 airports were down 0.6% from a year ago, the second consecutive month with a drop from last year. Washington D.C.’s Reagan National Airport had the highest average quote at $76.64.
In August’s 50-city survey, rate quotes for the top 50 airports were down 4.7% from a year ago. The Northwest region had the highest rates, with Portland International Airport’s average quote at $75.52.