Your Thanksgiving and Christmas travel will be more expensive this year. Face the facts, the airline industry has reduced capacity and raised prices. The loss of the billions to subsidize your travel is now over, and if you want to travel to visit the family, you will have to pay for it.

Sensing that shift in the terrain, shrewd travelers, knowing precisely where they want to go during the holidays, booked early and snapped up good fares, according to online booking companies such as Travelocity, Expedia, Orbitz, Cheapfares and SideStep.

“People have been pretty savvy this year,” said Amy Ziff, spokeswoman for Travelocity. “We’ve seen record-breaking holiday weekends all year, and we use that as a precursor of what Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s will be. We’ve been predicting a busy season, so people have been booking very early.”

As fuel costs have increased and cash-strapped airlines have shrunk their schedules wherever possible to save money, fewer seats are available, Ziff said. To pay for fuel, she said, the airlines have increased fares, but even so, people are still buying. “This isn’t the best year for waiting until the last minute.”

Our family is having Thanksgiving the weekend before to save on travel costs. I think many other people will be looking at alternatives for the holidays.