1+1=2<1

by Tatiana Kryzhanovskaya on July 21, 2009 · 1 comment

in International, Odds & Ends

By introducing new regulations the Congress together with major airlines are discouraging us to travel. While the Congress is deciding on how to regulate the size of carry-on luggage and while the airlines are charging us more in taxes than in actual fares, the passengers are still facing a ridiculous policy that a one-way airfare costs several times more than a roundtrip ticket. Weird arithmetic: a trip from one destination to another and back will cost you much less than a flight one way only. Is not that strange that 1+1=2 is less than 1? In fact if you are purchasing a roundtrip the cost of a ticket is up to 10 times cheaper than if you are booking a one-way trip. For example, a roundtrip from New York to Paris would normally cost you around $750. But if you need only 1 segment of this journey you would be asked to pay at least $2000. So booking a roundtrip and using only 1 segment of it saves you a lot of money. Seems very inefficient that the airlines are forcing us to “adjust” our travel plans in order to pay less instead of just making the price fair for a half of the trip as well.

Tagged as: Airlines, Regulation

{ 1 comment }

Avitar July 21, 2009 at 11:08 am: Half is not quite right. There is a passenger booking cost to the airlines regardless. Maybe twenty to thirty dollars than on top of that half of the trip. The games marketing majors play accounts for the Alice in wonderland quality of the rest of airline booking.