BA long haul price discrepancy
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BA long haul price discrepancy
Can anyone explain why the cost of a long haul return ticket to a provincial airport in UK with a transfer at LHR costs substantially less than if London is the final destination?
In this case from PEK to NCL via LHR with BA as the carrier and using the same dates and flights for the long haul segments and using BA's website to book.
In this case from PEK to NCL via LHR with BA as the carrier and using the same dates and flights for the long haul segments and using BA's website to book.
A piece I wrote on codesharing a while back explains this phenomenon:
The airline alliances (an extension of informal codesharing) were formed in the 1990s in an attempt to facilitate seamless travel between a potentially vast number of worldwide points by integrating the networks and schedules of 20-30 member airlines. Typically each alliance will have at least one major player in the USA, in Europe, in Latin America and in Asia plus a dozen or more regional carriers across all continents.
Often carriers "codeshare" meaning that on the ticket of a passenger originating in Des Moines, Iowa and flying with American to Chicago and then BA to London and onto Edinburgh, the whole trip will appear as "AA" on the ticket, even though most of the trip is operated by BA. Codesharing gives passengers peace of mind that psychologically they are travelling with their local carrier (and therefore the safety of their local carrier) regardless of where they are going in the world. It also gives the alliance clout in the reservation system as the routings with several codes will appear several times versus routings with a single carrier would only appear once. For example BMI's London-Edinburgh route carries codes of about 8-9 other carriers so will appear on 8-9 lines of the CRS even thoiugh it is a single flight!
The alliance model does have its flaws though. It has been built around the concept of a number of large hub airports (e.g. Dallas, Chicago, Frankfurt, Amsterdam) and is very much focussed on facilitating connecting traffic. Quite often an alliance will try and "poach" passengers from the backyard of another alliance whilst charging it's own originating passengers a fortune.
For an illustration of what I mean go onto ba.com and look at the price for a Club World ticket from London to Dallas. Now on the same website enquire about the same flight but this time start your journey in Amsterdam. Note the huge price differential! It is often up to 50% cheaper to start your journey in Amsterdam than it is in London.
Meantime KLM is offering similarly good fares to UK passengers transiting through Amsterdam whilst charging a lot more to the Dutch boarding in Amsterdam!
All that happens in the end is that everybody poaches everybody elses passengers!
Worse still the AMS-LGW-DFW passenger costs the airline a lot more to carry than the LGW-DFW passenger as there is both the additional AMS-LGW leg as well as the cost of the transit (moving bags etc).
You can now begin to see why so many alliance carriers are in such a financial mess!
Throw in Low Cost carriers into the short-haul market and the future of alliances looks quite bleak. I can see the allaince model being suitable only for trips where part or all of the journey is long-haul within the next few years.
The airline alliances (an extension of informal codesharing) were formed in the 1990s in an attempt to facilitate seamless travel between a potentially vast number of worldwide points by integrating the networks and schedules of 20-30 member airlines. Typically each alliance will have at least one major player in the USA, in Europe, in Latin America and in Asia plus a dozen or more regional carriers across all continents.
Often carriers "codeshare" meaning that on the ticket of a passenger originating in Des Moines, Iowa and flying with American to Chicago and then BA to London and onto Edinburgh, the whole trip will appear as "AA" on the ticket, even though most of the trip is operated by BA. Codesharing gives passengers peace of mind that psychologically they are travelling with their local carrier (and therefore the safety of their local carrier) regardless of where they are going in the world. It also gives the alliance clout in the reservation system as the routings with several codes will appear several times versus routings with a single carrier would only appear once. For example BMI's London-Edinburgh route carries codes of about 8-9 other carriers so will appear on 8-9 lines of the CRS even thoiugh it is a single flight!
The alliance model does have its flaws though. It has been built around the concept of a number of large hub airports (e.g. Dallas, Chicago, Frankfurt, Amsterdam) and is very much focussed on facilitating connecting traffic. Quite often an alliance will try and "poach" passengers from the backyard of another alliance whilst charging it's own originating passengers a fortune.
For an illustration of what I mean go onto ba.com and look at the price for a Club World ticket from London to Dallas. Now on the same website enquire about the same flight but this time start your journey in Amsterdam. Note the huge price differential! It is often up to 50% cheaper to start your journey in Amsterdam than it is in London.
Meantime KLM is offering similarly good fares to UK passengers transiting through Amsterdam whilst charging a lot more to the Dutch boarding in Amsterdam!
All that happens in the end is that everybody poaches everybody elses passengers!
Worse still the AMS-LGW-DFW passenger costs the airline a lot more to carry than the LGW-DFW passenger as there is both the additional AMS-LGW leg as well as the cost of the transit (moving bags etc).
You can now begin to see why so many alliance carriers are in such a financial mess!
Throw in Low Cost carriers into the short-haul market and the future of alliances looks quite bleak. I can see the allaince model being suitable only for trips where part or all of the journey is long-haul within the next few years.
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Prawn I think was asking why the differential when it was the SAME airline end-to-end
I presume the answer lies in the murky world of cost allocation, tax and similar................
remember BA have always claimed they make no money on LHR-ABZ - when they had a higher number of business class passengers than on just about any other short haul route (those were the days eh?) - clearly costs and income were being juggled for some arcane internal purpose
I presume the answer lies in the murky world of cost allocation, tax and similar................
remember BA have always claimed they make no money on LHR-ABZ - when they had a higher number of business class passengers than on just about any other short haul route (those were the days eh?) - clearly costs and income were being juggled for some arcane internal purpose
It's exactly the same in America, a ticket from New York to Hicksville may involve a transfer in Atlanta onto another flight but costs less than a ticket from New York to Atlanta. Known as "hidden cities ticketing", passengers have been know to buy through tickets and not use the last sector. It only works with hand luggage as checked bags are tagged through to final destination and may be difficult to recover once they are offloaded when you miss the final sector.
The airlines are aware of this and prohibit it in their term and conditions so don't use your frequent flyer account, pay with a rechargable VISA card, change you name slightly eg John Smith/ J Smith/ John C Smith/JC Smith Jnr etc. and have an address and ID in a different state.
If you think BA are bad, try the Middle East airlines, it is sometimes cheaper to fly from Australia to Europe via the ME than it is to fly from Australia to the ME. The reason is that transfer passengers can easily choose another airline with a different hub, but someone going to the Middle East is going there for specific reason and can't change.
Similarly, in the US Miami to Kansas is more expensive than Kansas to Miami, as Miami bound passengers are going on holiday and can switch to another destination if they don't like the price.
The airlines are aware of this and prohibit it in their term and conditions so don't use your frequent flyer account, pay with a rechargable VISA card, change you name slightly eg John Smith/ J Smith/ John C Smith/JC Smith Jnr etc. and have an address and ID in a different state.
If you think BA are bad, try the Middle East airlines, it is sometimes cheaper to fly from Australia to Europe via the ME than it is to fly from Australia to the ME. The reason is that transfer passengers can easily choose another airline with a different hub, but someone going to the Middle East is going there for specific reason and can't change.
Similarly, in the US Miami to Kansas is more expensive than Kansas to Miami, as Miami bound passengers are going on holiday and can switch to another destination if they don't like the price.
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Breach airlines T&Cs at your own peril.
Some airlines, such as LX and LH, allow you to choose the hidden city option - but they will price it based on your actual journey, rather than your ticketed journey.
Senior courts in many jurisdictions, and the UK's office of fair trading, have upheld the airlines right to charge their fare for the journey actually taken.
Oh, and for the very very few passengers who have to change due to unforeseen circumstances, many airlines allow them to do so, provided they advise them in advance.
Some airlines, such as LX and LH, allow you to choose the hidden city option - but they will price it based on your actual journey, rather than your ticketed journey.
Senior courts in many jurisdictions, and the UK's office of fair trading, have upheld the airlines right to charge their fare for the journey actually taken.
Oh, and for the very very few passengers who have to change due to unforeseen circumstances, many airlines allow them to do so, provided they advise them in advance.
Prawn,
If you have the time, look at a website called flyertalk. That gives lots of ideas about pricing. The current favourite appears to go Oslo or Dublin to LHR to a long haul and back, cheaper than lhr to the same place.
If you have the time, look at a website called flyertalk. That gives lots of ideas about pricing. The current favourite appears to go Oslo or Dublin to LHR to a long haul and back, cheaper than lhr to the same place.
DUB to the US via LHR on BA is ridiculously cheaper than LON to the US. Also Club World fares on some days and on some flights less than half of EI's business class so if you're not in a hurry it's a steal.
In fact a cheeky one would be to book via BA website. Book American going direct from Dublin to JFK, ORD, Charlotte or Philly, avail of pre-clearance and come back via LHR. If you're flexible it can be done return for only marginally more than half of EI's one way (sales excluded) price.
In fact a cheeky one would be to book via BA website. Book American going direct from Dublin to JFK, ORD, Charlotte or Philly, avail of pre-clearance and come back via LHR. If you're flexible it can be done return for only marginally more than half of EI's one way (sales excluded) price.
