Originally Posted by
PDXpress
Because they are random. Well no, there's a pattern, but it doesn't make any sense.
MFR-SFO and MFR-SJC are almost always 5,000 but MFR-OAK and MFR-SMF are 10,000. All the those routes cost roughly the same in $. Don't try to reason with it, just take the deals.
The QX routes of OAK/SMF/STS-PDX have been pretty consistently more expensive than SFO/SJC-PDX in my recent experience. It's annoying as hell looking at flights every week all spring and summer of $120-195 OAK-PDX while there are lots of $73/$87 SFO fares and $66 SJC fares. They want to grow at those airports (and obviously not at the QX airports), so lots of capacity and cheap fares is the brilliant business strategy I guess.