The Travel Detective
Cheap Airfares Vs. Cheap Airports: How Travelers Can Benefit From Airline Competition
Should you look for a cheap flight or cheap airport?
The Travel Detective reports on consistent ways to find good value and how you can use airline competition to your benefit.
The other day I called American Airlines and asked them, “Do you fly from Los Angeles to Las Vegas?”
They said yes, so I asked, “What’s the cheapest fare you’ve got this week from Los Angeles to Las Vegas?” For this 38-minute flight, it cost $225.
Then I said, “What’s your fare from Los Angeles to New York?” $189.
If I were running a limousine company and priced it that way I’d be out of business. I’d run out of gas. Why is it that a five-hour flight is $40 cheaper than a 38-minute flight? Does that make any sense?
Once you get into the dark science of airline pricing and yield management, it does. Airlines base their prices on their competition. How did that $189 fare even get into the system? I’m sure American Airlines doesn’t want to charge me $189, but they feel they must. Why? Because Virgin America has a $189 fare.
When a new airline comes on board, they don’t have enough planes to compete with frequency or schedule. They can only compete with fares so they come out with a ridiculously low fare. Then all the majors airlines in that market who don’t want the competition will not only match that fare, but also offer triple mileage.
Find cheap airports: America’s Best Alternate Airports
The major airlines know they can lose money longer than the other guy. The airline business is so bad because it’s not about making money. It’s about who can lose money longer.
For real value, don’t look at the fare. Instead, look at the airports. Check out Chicago to Los Angles in comparison to Milwaukee to Los Angeles. The Milwaukee airport doesn’t have the same flight frequency, but its flights are less expensive. Milwaukee is Chicago’s third “secret” airport. Just look at the parking lot and you’ll see that half the cars there have Illinois plates.
If you want to go from New York to San Francisco, try pricing it from New York to Oakland. Guess what? Cheaper fares.
Or with New York most people think you’re flying to Newark, LaGuardia, or Kennedy. Well there’s a secret airport there that’s got better fares––MacArthur out in Islip, Long Island.
Nobody knows about Islip and you can fly virtually anywhere in the United States from there if you don’t mind stopping once. You have to change planes from LaGuardia or Washington Reagan too, where flights over 1,500 miles are prohibited. You can’t fly Washington Reagan non-stop to San Francisco or to Los Angeles. But they have a non-stop flight from Islip to Las Vegas, where you can connect anywhere you want to go.
The real bottom line here is the airport and how they price those fares. Now there are some airports that are smaller where you won’t find any great fares.
Take Palm Springs, for example. The airline business knows that people want to go to Palm Springs in the winter, and they’ll pay anything they can. But alternate airports that are less convenient or have lower demand always have great fares.
Remember Oakland for San Francisco, Long Beach for Los Angeles, Mitchell Field for Chicago, Islip for New York, and Providence for Boston.
Every once and a while, a new airlines will offer ridiculously competitive rates in the major markets and if you grab that stuff you can save some money. But don’t bank on competition to drive down prices. On an annual basis, the airports that I mentioned typically have lower fares and provide great value.
By Peter Greenberg for Peter Greenberg Worldwide Radio.
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