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Why It Costs Twice as Much to Fly Half as Far

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Re: Why It Costs Twice as Much to Fly Half as Far

#2
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.

Re: Why It Costs Twice as Much to Fly Half as Far

#7
post #6

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.

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.

Re: Why It Costs Twice as Much to Fly Half as Far

#8
post #7
post #6

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.

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.

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).

Re: Why It Costs Twice as Much to Fly Half as Far

#9
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.

Re: Why It Costs Twice as Much to Fly Half as Far

#10
post #7
post #6

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.

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.

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.

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