Airline ticket pricing

[IL_Bison]

A coworker has similar issues flying out of Grand Rapids, MI to MSP. If he needs to see a customer in Mankato, its much cheaper for him to fly to Rochester, MN through MSP rather than nonstop to MSP.

I think it may be due to the federal subsidy for smaller airports...Essential Air Service or something like that.

[Bison bison]

It has nothing to do with Essential Air Service.

Rochester is not eligible for the program because it is too close to a hub.

[Tatanka]

It has nothing to do with Essential Air Service.

Rochester is not eligible for the program because it is too close to a hub.

Houston is definitely not eligible.

[BisonAccountant44]

Off the top of my head, I'd say that it probably has to do with a couple things. The big one is that you're paying a premium for the convenience of flying direct. The other has to do with the way they allocate their costs over the passengers on each flight.

Since the trend is for direct flights to be more expensive, they probably allocate the majority of the costs related to each route to the passengers who are traveling on only that route first, and then the remaining costs are split between passengers traveling over multiple routes.

That gives the passenger a discount for dealing with the hassle of connecting flights, and helps them get more butts in the seats of more flights. Of course that assumes they measure their costs on a per passenger basis, and I have no idea if that is the case or not.

[bisonaudit]

From the demand side the airline likely has little worry about filling their legs into Chicago two months in advance. Peoria is probably a different story.

[The_Sicatoka]

I thought they just had a dice cup. What they roll is what you pay.

[Tatanka]

I thought they just had a dice cup. What they roll is what you pay.

Way, waaaaaaaay to logical.

[tony]

A coworker has similar issues flying out of Grand Rapids, MI to MSP. If he needs to see a customer in Mankato, its much cheaper for him to fly to Rochester, MN through MSP rather than nonstop to MSP.

I think it may be due to the federal subsidy for smaller airports...Essential Air Service or something like that.

I remember how happy I was the one time my flight from x* to MSP to FAR was cheaper than the flight from x to MSP would have been. Of course, now I feel a little letdown because it has never happened since.

* Not sure what x was - probably NYC but it might have been coming from overseas.

[Herd80]

I've always been confused on the regional airport cost issue.

This one time (not at band camp, but about 10 years ago) trying to get from Fargo to D.C.

- Fargo to DC through Mpls: $1300
- Drive to Mpls, get on the same flight Mpls to DC: $900
- Drive to Watertown, connect in Mpls (same flight) to DC: $500

Huh? Needless to say, had a nice drive to Watertown

[Civil06]

I remember how happy I was the one time my flight from x* to MSP to FAR was cheaper than the flight from x to MSP would have been. Of course, now I feel a little letdown because it has never happened since.

* Not sure what x was - probably NYC but it might have been coming from overseas.

We booked an overseas trip for this December/January and it was several hundred dollars cheaper to fly out of FAR than MSP. Win-win for me and it saves us a lot of headaches (Although with the extra flight each way and layovers the total travel time will be > 35 hours).