Major U.S. carriers matched a Delta-led price hike on domestic long-haul routes,

according to FareCompare.com CEO Rick Seaney. The $20 roundtrip increase, Seaney added, was the first of 2012 and twice as much as any last year. He also noted increased "activity on shorter domestic routes that airlines (including low-cost airlines) are matching on a case-by-case basis," as well as a "widely matched" $10 roundtrip price hike yesterday by JetBlue Airways "on a significant number of routes." J.P. Morgan analyst Jamie Baker in a Thursday research note highlighted Southwest Airlines' "$10 one-way increase of roughly 20,000 fares ... biased to longer-haul markets." Baker suggested Southwest's "smallish, tactical increases, at a rate that appears to be gaining momentum" reflect an increasingly active pricing department.