Why It Costs Twice as Much to Fly Half as Far (opens in new tab)

(time.com)

11 pointstdm91115y ago12 comments

12 comments

In summary: routes served by multiple airlines will be cheaper.

A few days ago I wanted a one way flight from SYD to IAD, it was $1600. For fun I decided to see how much a round trip would cost: I bought it for $1100.

It's $500 cheaper to get a round-trip ticket than to fly one way from Sydney to Washington D.C.

ganley15y ago

This is the part I've never understood. I can see why they don't want to make it half the price (though this works just fine for discount airlines), but MORE? WTF?

snitko15y ago

Interestingly in Russia it's nothing like that. Round-ticket costs only slightly less than twice the price of a one way ticket (seems logical). Not sure, if this is good or bad, because I really don't understand the underlying logic behind this pricing policy of making one-way ticket twice as expensive as a one-way ticket.

quant1815y ago

I remember a similar situation from the news a few years ago. May have been in Indonesia, though I can't remember clearly anymore and Google isn't helping me.

Basically a flight between A and C which stopped at B (for refueling or to take on extra passengers or something) was cheaper than a flight from A to B. But for some reason the airline would only sell tickets from A to C with the condition that you could not get off at B. Some guy flew from A, tried to sneak off at B, and got caught. He claims the security guards roughed him up, and tried to sue the airline.

Zak15y ago

Airlines can prevent you from boarding if you travel part of a route you booked by alternate means? I'm not generally much of a fan of government intervention in private business, but that should probably be illegal.

riobard15y ago

I was looking for a flight from Frankfurt, Germany to Toronto, Canada half a year ago. Lufthansa charges around $1.8k for that.

At the same time, Lufthansa also offers a connecting flight from Delhi, India, to Frankfurt then to Toronto. This one, although much longer, costs $1.2k.

Then I stopped worrying about the world's oil supply.

furyg315y ago

Similarly, a friend was moving from Amsterdam to NYC, and needed a one-way flight. The direct flight was pretty expensive, but a flight out of Berlin was many-hundreds of euro less... with a connection in Amsterdam (of course).

As you would expect, the airline wouldn't let him just board in Amsterdam. So he packed his things and took a €75 train to Berlin early in the morning, and had his family wish him farewell later that evening back in Amsterdam, during his connection.

It was a pain in the ass, but it saved him a ton of money, at great expense to the airline.

ido15y ago

Off-topic, but that sounds unreasonably expensive:

http://www.skyscanner.at/flights/fran/ytoa/100730/100802/air...

The cheapest offer is 750.79 Euros for the round trip (and direct flights to boot).

Murkin15y ago

When traveling a year ago I discovered that:

In south america, many of the one-way flights costs more than return.

And it was cheaper to fly from Rio to Bogota via (get this) Miami !

travem15y ago

I've recently booked a flight from the UK to Utah, getting the return was cheaper than getting the single (by a couple of $100). Remind me why the airlines are losing money again?

ecaradec15y ago

Recent real life example : To go from montpellier (a south of france city ) to corsa (a south a france island ) it cost less to fly by London first...

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse