OT Air fares

[Capitol]

I settled down today to buy a couple of flights to Houston. It cost us £2400 for cattle class. To fly one week earlier we would have had to pay £4000. I checked the price I paid in 3014 and it was $1217. In this time interval, the cost of aviation fuel has halved! OK, there is an exchange rate variation but it's not +100%. I can fly to Australia for much less money. There is a cartel for transatlantic flight, as the price from United Airlines is identical. I reckon our politicians and the monopolies commission are falling down on their jobs to allow these sort of price increases. OK, we can bear to pay these prices, but most families cannot. What do you think?

[Clive George]

Expedia is giving me 750 odd quid return for London Houston, 22 April - 13 May.

[Andy Burns]

Without saying what dates you're choosing, and whether or not you're flexible, that's merely one price in a sea of many prices.

Using skyscanner I can see several prices under £640 for 1 stop, or under £860 for direct flights ...

[Capitol]

You'll find that's with a stop.

[Capitol]

You'll find the £868 prices disappear when you try to book them.

[Andy Burns]

Well, it let me put the flight in the "travel trolley" and it said checking the deal was still available, and claimed there were 4 tickets left at that price, obviously as I don't actually want to go to Houston, I didn't get my credit card out for the next step.

LHR->IAH direct 10th April

IAH->LHR direct 27th April cattle class each way on 777 both flights operated by United, so just Austrian/Lufthansa in name respectively.

£859.77 including taxes and supplements

[Adrian Caspersz]

On 31/03/17 18:57, Capitol wrote: There is a cartel for transatlantic flight, as the

Priorities. I'd rather have an NHS.

[Clive George]

No I won't. Some of them are, some of them aren't.

[Brian Gaff]

I think you are right, but I still remember the price war that put Laker out of business. I'm not sure whether that was engineered deliberately, or not but I am aware that costs involved in using airports has gone up like there is no tomorrow according to the grapevine, so maybe its other costs that are the issue, not the cost of fuel..

Brian

[Jethro_uk]

Didn't BA and a load of US airlines settle out of court ?

[Tim Lamb]

Never book a flight from the m/c you used to check the prices!

[Capitol]

Now add the seat booking charge and CC charges.

[Capitol]

Explain please?

[Jim White]

[snip]

+1 Also applies to Hotels, Train booking and Insurance

[Andy Burns]

As I said, I don't /want/ to fly to Houston, so I can't go any further in the process, are you really suggesting £1540 of charges?

Skyscanner are a UK company and I thought there was legislation (re: misleading RyanAir/EasyJet hidden compulsory fees in the past) that say the advertised price *has* to be the price you pay?

[Capitol]

Cost is for 2 people. Seat booking and CC charges are not shown. The United price is for a few scattered seats which for us are unsuitable. The BA price for a flight to Houston on the 30TH April is in the region of £1300, add on the return flight of >£600 and you end up with around £2K per person. The ridiculous pricing is a result of having a cartel fixing the prices and lack of competition. The prices I paid were equally valid for a United flight in late January as our son bought a flight over at that time. The prices were the same to a first approximation in December just before Xmas. The United business model appears to be it is more profitable to sell a few high priced seats than to fill the plane at a lower cost. The United planes have been reduced in capacity and are now also much older. The big new high capacity Boeings have now been taken out of service, even though their running costs are lower if filled. He also finds that all US and transatlantic flight costs have risen astronomically as a result of cartel pricing and a lack of competition. He does around 30 long return flights a year within the US and a few transatlantic. It is much cheaper to fly to other long haul destinations, presumably because of more competition. Ryanair and Easyjet can fly at much lower costs per mile.

[Clive George]

Taxes were half the price of the ones I saw.

[Capitol]

Taxes have not significantly changed in 2-3 years.

[Theo]

Flights to less-major US cities seem to be like that: if you want to fly direct on a smaller route, expect to pay for it. In this case Houston is an oil centre: I wouldn't be surprised the oil market is what keeps the planes busy, and they're priced accordingly. It's not a cartel so much as the prices are higher because loading on such routes can be variable - and other airlines don't think it's worth their while.

If you want it cheaper, be prepared to fly indirect.

Have a look at Norwegian Air Shuttle. eg Gatwick to Orlando GBP363pp return, Orlando to Houston GBP117pp return on Spirit, 11-18 May. (bags extra)

Theo

[Huge]

[25 lines snipped]

There is no logic (well, there is, but it's astonishingly complicated) to the pricing of airline flights.

This about sums it up (in English, despite the .de link);