Little fallout for airfares

“Sometimes the airline gods smile on you and sometimes they don’t,’’ said Darryl Jenkins of the Airline Zone, an airline economics group. “The last couple of years, Thor has been angry.’’

But raising fares isn’t the answer, analysts say. For one, prices to Europe are already sky-high, with most summertime round-trip fares from Boston into London, Paris, Rome, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Madrid, and Dublin well over $1,000 — a few hundred dollars more than they were last summer.

“I think it’s going to be hard to convince people who are used to paying under $1,000 to pay even more,’’ said Anne Banas of SmarterTravel.com, a travel deals site based in Charlestown.

Adding to that, reports about the possibility of recurring eruptions from the Icelandic volcano are making some people jittery about booking flights. If people are already on the fence about flying, higher fares would discourage them further, airline analysts say. If planes don’t fill up, there could even be some last-minute deals in July and August.

“I think Mother Nature will have the last word,’’ said Rick Seaney of Farecompare.com. “If this thing continues to shoot ash in the air and gum up the works, I think people will say, ‘Hey, I don’t need the stress.’ ’’

Meanwhile, there’s not much airlines can do to alleviate the financial strain they’ve experienced because of the volcano, said George Hoffer, a professor of economics at Virginia Commonwealth University and a longtime aviation industry observer. Price changes typically are linked to either an increase in expenses for things such as jet fuel or an increase in demand, he said. Because the ash cloud disruption was a fixed cost, or an expense that doesn’t change in proportion to business activity, it doesn’t make sense to raise fares.