If there’s a silver lining to the economic woes that have halted most consumer spending in its tracks, it’s this: Spring and summer airfares are amazingly cheap. Tom BloomIndeed, fares are so cut-rate right now that it could cost more to fly two bags between Chicago and Minneapolis than to transport one person.

A flight during traditional work hours between those two cities was available on American Airlines last week for $88 round-trip. Bring two bags along and you’ll pay an extra $100 round-trip reports the Wall Street Journal.

At $88, that fare calculates roughly to a dirt-cheap 3.3 cents per air mile between Chicago O’Hare and Minneapolis-St. Paul International. Driving — on land miles, of which there are more — would cost about 10 cents a mile if gasoline averaged about $2 a gallon.

“These are really wild and crazy prices,” says Tom Parsons, chief executive of Bestfares.com, a discount-travel site. “When you think that airfares can’t get any cheaper, even for no-advance-purchase fares, they do.”

L.A. to New York for $14

Earlier this month, JetBlue offered a one-day-only sale on flights to New York from San Francisco or Los Angeles for a jaw-dropping $14 one way, before taxes — far less than cab fare from JFK airport into Manhattan.

A last-minute trip to New York from the West Coast for what amounted to a $49 round-trip price including taxes was unheard of only a few months ago, much less a couple of years ago.

“The deals that we’re seeing are pretty incredible right now,” says Joel Grus, a “fareologist” with Live Search Farecast, a travel-search site (farecast.live.com). “Some of them that I see make me want to say I’m going on vacation next week.”

Unfortunately, a growing number of consumers don’t have that option. About 5.1 million jobs have been lost since the start of the recession and last month alone some 663,000 people found themselves jobless as the unemployment rate soared to 8.5%. The bottom line, for the airlines: Not enough people are flying for business or pleasure.

The Air Transport Association, an industry trade group, says revenues from passenger flights are on a path of sharp decline. In February, the latest numbers available, passenger revenues dropped 19% compared with the same period a year ago. That was the fourth straight month the industry saw a year-over-year drop.

Domestic and international airfares have been decreasing for many months, but the bargain-basement prices available for travel in late April, May and even into summer — when prices usually are at their highest — are a sure sign of desperation for air carriers.

Fare Cuts for U.S. and Abroad

“The airlines are pushing people to travel now and the only way they can get a customer to travel is if [the customer] sees excellent deals,” says Altan Arsan, owner of Artun Travel in Chicago.

Airfares are down an average of 9% from this time last year on domestic flights and 19% for international flights, according to the travel site Farecast. But the discounts go even deeper on selected flights.

A flight from San Francisco to Miami any time from April 22 to April 29 was available last week for $155, according to Farecast. A year ago, that would have cost $283.

Overall, flights to Miami are lower by 28% since this time last year; fares to Las Vegas have fallen 12% year over year.

“The problem the airlines are having right now is that everyone is booking closer to the date of departure,” Mr. Parsons says. People “are afraid they won’t have a job to pay for a trip, and they’re being very cautious about booking things too far out.”

It used to be that a trip to Europe, for example, would be considerably less if the flights were booked well in advance of the trip, preferably five to six months ahead.

Read more here: Airfares Are Really Low Right Now