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Originally Posted by Redddog
Can someone explain why a specific airport would be more expensive than another one to fly out of? I understand the economics of price setting but I keep reading that Philly is so consistently higher because of the costs associated with Philly.
What are those costs and is there something that can be done about that? It seems like ultimately, you're leaving a ton of money on the table if people are driving to freaking Dulles to get a better deal.
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Philly is an American hub without many Delta and United flights. When all three are in an airport, they have these pop-up deals available to attract fliers to try to get their flights full. When it’s just American, they don’t have to lower prices as frequently because they know the locals will just go there for convenience.
You’ll see this play out with routes where American is competing against Southwest or Frontier, where they may offer deals. Or American will simply start pushing more connection flyers through PHL to avoid competition fights with the low cost carriers.
On the other end of the scenario, most the international flights in phl are AA with no competition from other carriers. That’s where you look at Duelles and see both United and Delta flying to Cape Town so they offer special fares to compete against each other.
So yes, if you don’t look at other nearby airports, you could be paying much more to fly out of PHL and not realize it. But to be fair, it’s hard for people to research this to figure out as most people only look at prices on Expedia or the airline site. If you don’t have multiple points cards and logging in through coshare accounts, you won’t see most of the deals. It’s like an extreme couponing game when you get into finding the best deals…and they mostly aren’t out of Philly.