Dealing with airlines and fares

I'm looking for advice, but also a place to vent. First, my vent...


As you may know, I'm heading to Vegas in September. My preference is to fly in early on 9/19, and fly out late on 9/25.

I live in Northern New Jersey. The closest airport, 45 minutes away, is Newark. After that, Kennedy and LaGuardia are just over an hour, then there's Philadelphia, at just over two hours. There are smaller regional airports, but they only have multiple stop flights with fares that are too high.

Newark is by far my first choice because I have a brother that lives a few miles from there, so no parking issues. No tolls either.

I was pricing flights. Nonstop from Newark on Continental is around $430. Continental flys out of Philly, with connections in Houston or Cleveland for around $260. It's certainly worth the drive and paying for parking to go from Philly, except I prefer non-stops. But it begs the question:

Why is it so much cheaper to fly one-stop from Philly than non-stop from Newark?

Isn't a considerable portion of the expense of air travel the costs of take-off and landing, baggage handling, and other airport related costs? If so, why is a flight with a change of planes about 40% cheaper than a non-stop?


So I figured there's something about Phiily that makes it cheap and/or about Newark (or the NY/NJ Port Authority) that makes it expensive, and started to investigate all the airlines that service Philly.

Delta has a one stop from Philly for $309. They have a non-stop from Kennedy for $406.

But wait - That one stop? It's at Kennedy! It's cheaper to fly from Philly to Vegas with a stop at Kennedy, than going direct from Kennedy. What gives? Why does what ever issue is involved, not affect people that are only passing thru?

Can I purchase this flight from Philly, and not use the Philly to Kennedy portion? I probably won't do this because Continental's flights that connect in Houson or Cleveland are cheaper, but I'm still curious.


OK. I'm done venting.

I don't fly much. Maybe 6 times in the last 20 years. All have been non-stop.

Since I'm probably taking a flight with one stop, I'd like the advice of people who fly a lot and have had flights with connections.

Continental has THREE choices that I'm interested in. All take the same flight out of Philly. The first choice has a 1:19 layover, the second 2:34, the third choice 3:54. Any thoughts on which I should take? Obviously, if there are no delays or problems, I'd prefer the first so I get to Vegas sooner. But what happens if there are delays?


Thanks.

Bah, delays, they'll put you on the next one. Sometimes they'll even hold a plane if there any many people on the 1st leg trying to make the 2nd one. Take the 1 hour layover!

I'd personally wait until at least mid-June to book a flight. I'm flying out to Vegas in July and the lowest prices I ever saw were about a month ago (so about 2.5 months in advance), which I think is pretty typical for flights in the U.S. Personally, I'm going from Chicago to Vegas non-stop and am paying $340 RT, so it sounds like the prices you've found won't get a lot better.

If you're interested, here's a really good site to track flight prices:
Bing Travel

Quote: DJTeddyBear

Delta has a one stop from Philly for $309. They have a non-stop from Kennedy for $406.
But wait - That one stop? It's at Kennedy! It's cheaper to fly from Philly to Vegas with a stop at Kennedy, than going direct from Kennedy. What gives? Why does what ever issue is involved, not affect people that are only passing thru? Can I purchase this flight from Philly, and not use the Philly to Kennedy portion? I probably won't do this because Continental's flights that connect in Houson or Cleveland are cheaper, but I'm still curious.


Continental has THREE choices that I'm interested in. All take the same flight out of Philly. The first choice has a 1:19 layover, the second 2:34, the third choice 3:54. Any thoughts on which I should take? Obviously, if there are no delays or problems, I'd prefer the first so I get to Vegas sooner. But what happens if there are delays?

Your first scenario is actually fairly common. Airline prices are only remotely connected to actual costs. No you can't skip the first leg. You also can't skip the last leg when the through price is cheaper than the partial price. You can carry on your bags and sneak off the plane, but if you ask them if you can get off early, they will threaten you (no kidding).

Check Southwest out of Philadelphia. It should be comparable to Continental. They have three non-stops per day and dozens of connections. The noon nonstop and the 4PM non stop will obviously be more crowded than the nonstop that leaves at 7:40AM. There is a Motel6, an Econo Lodge and a Red Roof Inn at the Philadelphia airport. For money and convenience drive down the night before if it saves you enough on air fare.

You have to go to the Southwest website, as they do not advertise anywhere else.

In the future always check Allegiant Air to see if they have changed their policy. They fly out of Lehigh Valley, PA which is closer to you than Philadelphia. Right now they only fly to Florida and Myrtle Beach, but they may expand their schedule to go to Las Vegas (their home city). They are a strictly non-stop airline. They don't sell connecting tickets at all.
http://www.allegiantair.com/aaRouteMapInteractive.php

Edit: I was slow posting, and Mr. Martin already answered while I was typing. You can ignore the rest of this.

Quote: DJTeddyBear

Why is it so much cheaper to fly one-stop from Philly than non-stop from Newark?

I haven't checked into it, so I don't really know. My suspicion is that there is additional competition between Philly and Vegas. Also, airlines often give lower fares for inconvenient (for the passenger) routings, even though their costs have to be higher. It probably helps balance demand somewhat.

Quote: DJTeddyBear

Can I purchase this flight from Philly, and not use the Philly to Kennedy portion?

Nope. When you don't board the plane in Philly, they likely will cancel your ticket for the entire westbound flight.

Take the shortest layover. A total of 79 minutes is usually way more than enough. I don't normally worry about changing planes unless it is a commuter to a full size jets and you have to change terminals. In those cases I will schedule a longer time.

You really can't second guess delays in flights or you'll go insane.

Continental has 5 nonstops from Newark to Las Vegas. Even if it's more expensive, the gas & parking & your time has to make it a better bargain.

Thanks for the replies and advice.

I guess I'll roll the dice and wait until August to book.

As I recall, I booked it in August last year, and the price was around $250 for a nonstop out of Newark.


Worst case scenario, I'll book something out of Philly with a short layover. Can they go up much between now and August?

It's always best to book between 14 and 30 days in advance except in peak travel times (Christmas, Memorial Day, Thanksgiving). Airlines also sometimes have sales that are advertised or unadvertised so I would check weekly. It used to be that you could get the lowest fares with the earlier booking but with capacities and competition being so high, you'll get good rates closer to the time of booking, usually.

The reason why one-stops are cheaper than non-stops is because of the equipment and the crews. Yes, it takes less fuel, but you are flying on their mainline carrier paying all of the legacy wages where as the regionals are not operated by the carriers but are contracted out at much lower rates. Regionals also have alot of competition. Every major airline will have regional operations out of Buffalo (except Southwest and JetBlue) taking them on small planes to their hub (Newark, Minneapolis, Chicago) and then on to their destination.

Cost to and from airports are driven by competition. A flight out of Newark may be more expensive than a flight from Philly because Southwest doesn't fly direct to Vegas. Once you have competition for a direct flight, costs tend to come down. Because lots of airlines fly to Vegas out of Newark with one stop, you have to compete with all of the other airlines and that drives costs down.

The only portion of a flight that you might be able to walk out of is the last portion. But it is strongly not advised as they WILL pull your bags off the plane (if you have any) and you will have some pretty tough questions to answer. If on the other hand you have carry on only, you can probably walk, but the airline will know that you weren't on that plane and the plane will be delayed while they figure out if you had bags and to hold the flight for you. If you miss any previous portion of your flight, your entire ticket will be cancelled.

My recommendation from traveling a lot is that a direct flight is far more preferable than a one stop flight and is worth the extra money. A shorter layover is fine as long as it is not the last flight of the day. Before you go to the airport, check the weather and flight conditions in your layover airport and ask to be rerouted to one of their other hubs if you think a delay is imminent. For example, if you travel Continental out of Newark with a stop, you can travel through Cleveland or Houston. If you have a ticket through Houston and a hurricane is approaching, ask to be rerouted through Cleveland. Find a nice enough agent, look nice, act nice, and you might get yourself on a direct flight. If you're going to gamble with $$$$ anyway, what's an extra $100 for a flight. Time is money.

Just to help out and give you some info on my up coming trip.

I booked airfare on 2/4/10 @ $741 nostop round trip Pittsburgh to Vegas.
On 5/9/10 the same flight cost $1006.
And again checking today 5/19/10 the cost are up to $1175.

This is the same flights, Southwest Airlines flight numbers #150 and #2664.
I like the nonstop flight and looked for the cheepest flight I could get.

I used the same flight #'s to compare prices and track the best time to book.

IMHO on Southwest Airline you must book as early as you can for the cheepest price.

Hope this is some help.

Chuck

It might also pay to check AirTran out of both ABE (Allentown) and ACY (Atlantic City). Both make the one-stop hub at Atlanta. Their discount fares show round trips at $400+, and some lower Web discounts.