Can someone explain airfares to me?

[wayout]

I am considering flying to see one of two possible escorts as part of a long weekend I am planning. They are in different cities, one is Philly and one is Atlanta. So I price the round trip tickets and from my city to Philly it is $413 and to Atlanta it is $296, both on USAir. The curious thing, at least to me, is that the flight to/from Atlanta actually stops over in Philly to change planes. I double checked and taking the exact first leg the same time and the exact final leg the same time for the Philly portion results in that price differential. Can someone explain this to me please?

[Scorpio]

In this case, I believe it has something to do with volume. According to information that I could find, the Philadelphia airport handles about 700 flights per day. But the Atlanta airport handles about 2500 flights per day. Greater competition in Atlanta leads to lower prices.

[Bosguy]

There is no way anyone can figure it out. It depends on time of the year, time of the day, advance purchase time, and any other BS they can come up with to justify to themselves their outrageous prices and policies.

 

A couple of years ago I had business in Raleigh and there was a change planes in Philadelphia. I asked if I could take the same flight from Philly to Raleigh the next day. NO! I would have to pay full fare for each leg plus flight change charge. It would have cost me 4 times my purchase price and be sitting on the same planes/same flights

Last spring i was flying with a friend round trip to Palm Springs. I will admit we should have booked a few days earlier, but the quoted fare was over $1300 each--last year same time, same flights it was a little over $400. Thank God for frequent flier miles

 

Good luck

 

Boston Bill

[MscleLovr]

There is an exhaustive analysis of this 'issue' on a website which has days of reading and argument on the matter - http://www.flyertalk.com

[ted]

If you are looking for a logical explanation it really doesn't exist. Part of the equation may be that USAirways dominates Philly(although Southwest is giving them a run for their money) while Atlanta is very much Delta territory. You don't say where you are originating, but there may be better options to Atlanta than USAIR, unless that is where you have your frequent flyer miles and status.

I live between PHL and BWI. Fares flip flop over which gateway is cheaper at any one time. At one point I had a BWI cheaper flight, although just as your seeing, the Baltimore routing went to Phila and then on to its final destination. I've seen numerous instances for international travel to Europe where its sheaper to originate in PHL and connect thru Dulles than it is to book Dulles to Europe