Ticket Pricing: Middle East

[larssnowpharter]

Last week one was purchasing a return flight form Manila to Doha for niece to come out here for a while. Price was quoted on line at around $1200 on QR.

As a matter of interest I then checked prices Manila/London on the same outbound flight from Manila. Would you bloody Adam and Eve it: $900 around.

So you get to travel twice as far for about $300 less.:confused:

One was tempted to buy a single Manila/London and ‘cheat’ by getting off half way.:}

[Final 3 Greens]

One was tempted to buy a single Manila/London and ‘cheat’ by getting off half way

It works, so long as it is a one way ticket (i.e. no return for the airline to automatically cancel) and you have hand luggage only (as the check in agent may reasonably decline to check the bags only an intermediate stop.)

It is a breach of contract and the airline would be entitled to try to recover the difference in price, but I have never heard of that happening.

[GroundedSLF]

There are numerous route/price differances throughout the world, one old one that I used to use for my clients that worked quite well was with Concorde.

LHR-JFK return around £3k at the time, but price it from MXP and the fare dropped to around £1500 - so we used to offer "free" weekends in Milan prior to your concorde trip (just bought a one way with BA to Milan and combined with the Concorde through ticket) - saved clients loads and perfectly legal, although totally illogical to any "normal" person.

[Hartington]

I remember reading about a New York/Atlanta Delta flight many years ago that made an intermediate stop in somewhere like Charlotte. It was regularly booked solid all the way to Atlanta yet on take off from Charlotte there were often many empty seats. It took them a while to work out why - the fare New York/Atlanta was cheaper than New York/Charlotte. People with hand baggage were simply checking in to Atlanta then getting off at Charlotte.

I have little doubt that is not an isolated incident.

Oh and the route/airline may not have been as described but that's my recollection so sorry Delta if it wasn't you.

[davidjohnson6]

larss - air ticket pricing being set at 'cost + markup' went out a long time ago. No company will produce a product in the long term with revenues consistently below costs, but other than that all kinds of games may be going on.

Want to fly direct rather than changing on the way ? We're charging extra for that
Want to fly on our comfy seats compared to the rivals awkward seats ? We're charging extra for that
Want to fly at a popular time of day ? We're charging extra for that
Want to fly on a route on which we have a near monopoly ? We're charging extra for that
Want to fly somewhere for a major event or in school holidays ? We're charging extra for that
Want to fly at a time of the year when the weather is good ? We're charging extra for that
Want to fly on a route whose tickets are purchased mainly by companies rather than individuals ? We're charging extra for that
Want to avoid changing at an airport where you might need a transit visa ? We're charging extra for that

When a market has a large number of producers and consumers, you get a fair price. When a market has only one producer (and the substitute products are considerably inferior), they will tend to act more like a monopoly and will charge customers as much as they think they can get away with !

On a route like MNL-DOH for a non-stop flight, there is only one producer....