It's April already, and only USAir has posted any, they they are very limited. NWA has some, but not much availiblity.

How about Delta? With the strike fears, I would think they are hurting for bookings.

Any insights?

BA is selling coach seats for plus or minus $300 from USA gateways.

Your timing is a bit off. Lufthansa, Air France, and Delta all had spring sales which had to be purchased yesterday. You can still also try Aerlingus and IcelandAir which are running some sort of promotion. Check their respective websites for details. But act quickly, as the date of last purchase is rapidly approaching!

The Spring fares happened in March. If you checked fares in January or February for USA to Europe they were in the 700-1000 range. In early March they dropped to 350-550 for the same routes. In my opinion that was the Spring sale fares. Now that it is Spring they have gone up again.

they'll be back. nobody's overbooked at this point. don't worry.

I found the Spring Europe fares to be plentiful this year. We're doing Paris in two weeks on AA for $393 R/T including all taxes (from STL - untaxed fare was something like $329). This is NOT one of the special max-restriction 'L' fares, either.

I follow the best fares on Travelocity, and from the Midwest to Europe, there still seems to be a lot of availability in the under-$500 price range. (I may add a London trip in the near future.)

OP here

There is a lot to usual western europe, but I am looking for Athens (or even Rome)

Why not buy a good-priced flight to London with a cheap connection on Easyjet to Athens ex-Luton?

i saw ny to rome(fco) flights for may at around $464 (on az, nw, and af i think). also, nw has the two person biz class offer from dtw to fco for $899 plus tax apiece.

I just grabbed a $388.30 fare round-trip JFK-Heathrow on AA.

Also considering how steeply Delta just slashed prices for advance-purchase business class tickets to Europe (see the DL board), more sales for cosch to Europe can't be far behind. The majors must believe that load factors are going to plummet.

well, considering how the British Tourist industry is hurting over the Hoof and Mouth Disease crisis, it cannot be long before airfares to the sceptered isle are slashed dramatically.

I think you've hit the nail on the head.

When one looks at actual availability (in the late May to late June time frame) to almost all cities in Europe (except maybe LON), the cheapest inventory seats are virtually gone. Usually the cheapest seats to Europe are booked in W,V,N,T, or Q. When I look at these flights, what I'm seeing is zeroes for these COS... on almost all airlines - to almost all cities in Europe - from almost all cities in the US.

Furthermore, it doesn't seem to be 'just that simple'. Actually the lowest 3 classes of service tend to be booked! This is particularly true of UA, LH, AZ, DL, UA, US and AA. When I price these itineraries, fares in the $ 1,000 - $ 1,300 range are not uncommon out of the Southwest/Westcoast. (Of course, actual availability will depend on travel dates).

Keep in mind that just because there is a low published fare...or that some new sale fares may come along ... DOES NOT mean that there is a seat available at this fare.

You might be right here, however, based on my comments above, I'm not so sure. It would appear to me that because the lowest 3 C0S tend to be booked, that the airlines might be doing OK on their revenue in the "cheap seats", but suffering in biz.

Therefore, unless the airlines "free up" some added inventory - even if new sale fares do come along - getting a 'sale seat' in this time frame might still be a problem.

From my experience last year, unless one is planning a stopover in LON anyway, this can be a major hassle. Keep in mind that the RT train fare between LHR and LTN airports is not all that cheap - and so this needs to be factored in as well. Add to that the 'pain' of schlepping ones luggage between two airports. Also keep in mind that by the time one arrives in LON one is already suffering jet lag. Not my 'cup of tea' to 'suffer-save' $ 50 to $ 100 bucks, maybe. Also, the available cheap seats on Easyjet often result in a misconnect with the pond portion on the return, resulting in an added expense for an overnite in LON.

BTW, while servicing ATH, Easyjet does not service FCO or MIL.






[This message has been edited by tvl4free (edited 04-08-2001).]

just because they're listed a zeros at this point doesn't mean they're booked. the airlines may not have put a bunch of seats in these fare classes as of yet. i'm sure these fare codes are probably at zero's for next january at this point, and you know loads will be light then. a big part of this business is holding out on the lower fares until absolutely necessary. people are still selling seats for april, so they can hold out discounting june for another couple of weeks.

There are some very low fares to the UK right now for June. I just booked a jfk lhr return for 488. That is a great deal for June. Then I booked additional flight to Milan from LHR for about 200 r/t. Not a steal, but almost cheaper than anything in the marketplace. It is certainly not worth it to go to Luton or Stanstead from LHR. By the way, there is a cheap Continental flight from EWR to STN that offers some interesting possibilites....