KLM Flying Dutchman - KLM socks it to Americans?

I live in Los Angeles and am planning a trip to Brussels (or Amsterdam) in May 2012. I hope to travel via Biz Class.

On the U.S. version of KLM's website, a r/t Biz Class flight from LAX to Bru is $5,141.

However, on the Belgian version of KLM's website for the same two identical flight legs (taken from 2 r/t quotes where the price of each leg is broken down), the price is 2048 Euros or approximately $2,684.

The problem is that to book via the Belgian site, you must depart from Belgium or Holland.

The Dutch KLM site also has favorable prices, but not as favorable as the Belgian.

Any ideas on how to get around this situation? I thought of skype-ing the Belgian KLM ticket office and seeing what I could do from that angle.

Your best option would be to do nothing.

This is simple supply and demand. It means there is more business traffic needing to visit BRU from LAX right now than business traffic in BRU needing to visit LAX.

Your problem is very common, even within the US. A common, albeit rule breaking, workaround for some is to nest tickets if you have repeat trips planned between two destinations. Say you need to visit Austin from NYC every week for business but tickets AUS-JFK are more cheaper than JFK-AUS roundtrips. Some people will book an expensive JFK-AUS ticket with a return months later and then book a series of AUS-JFK roundtrips INSIDE that long JFK-AUS roundtrip. Some airlines will look for this activity, though, and might forbade boarding unless you pay the real fare.

This type of lop-sided faring is so common that almost all carriers specifically forbid nesting in their Contract of Carriage to discourage the practice spelled out above.

There's virtually no chance they'll change the fare for you unless the market dictates that those LAX-BRU flights are worth less than they expected and they re-fare them.

Nesting is not necessarily disallowed....(the domestic example given looks like it might breach "stay" rules - less of a problem on intercontinental flights like the OP's ) and many folks save $$$$ by doing just that...

Point of origin can make a huge difference in pricing... but nesting (where not in breach of fare rules) can take real advantage of it...

The Belgian KLM ticket office will tell you if you want the BRU origin price, well.. you have to originate in BRU! ;)

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However, on the Belgian version of KLM's website for the same two identical flight legs (taken from 2 r/t quotes where the price of each leg is broken down), the price is 2048 Euros or approximately $2,684...

And therein lies the issue. Simply put, the BRU-LAX-BRU market is different than the LAX-BRU-LAX market. Both this markets are served by a variety of flights, on a variety of airlines. Yes, it might clearly be the case that 2 people doing each of those routes end up on the exact same flights for part of the trip but it does not mean they have purchased the same product.

Perhaps you're all correct, but that sort of business practice is considered to constitute illegal price fixing in many other contexts. It's anti-competitive, anti-consumer and certainly contrary to the basic principles of a global economy.

Nothing illegal as long as they don't fix prices with other carriers.

KLM (and other airlines) have different competitive positions in different markets. They might be global brands, but their presence and brand power varies differently, hence they will need to price differently to get a target yield.

It is not illegal, just good business practice. You make the mistake to link prices to costs. There are many businesses were there is no direct link between cost and price.
People are more likely to fly the brand KLM in the netherlands than in Belgium, hence prices are lower out of BRU even when the costs are higher (extra flight).

Another analogy: Heineken. A premium brand in the whole world, except in the Netherlands where it is considered a standard local beer. The whole world pays probably more for Heineken than in the Netherlands where it is less premium.

Perhaps you're all correct, but that sort of business practice is considered to constitute illegal price fixing in many other contexts. It's anti-competitive, anti-consumer and certainly contrary to the basic principles of a global economy.
No, it is not. It is exactly the reverse. This is as good an example of market-based pricing competition as exists. And, I can't think of a jurisdiction (certainly not USA or EU) which would consider it such.

If the fares xLAX are too high, people won't buy them, the demand drops and price or capacity drops or the carrier goes belly up.

You may not personally like it because you are on the USA side of the equation, but there's somebody on the EU-side who is benefited.

Try the AF site - they let you start your trip from any city.

I just had the same problem - wanted to book AMS-BOS R/T and wanted to avoid the intl CC fees. Just ended up booking on AF and the prices were the same

Perhaps you're all correct, but that sort of business practice is considered to constitute illegal price fixing in many other contexts. It's anti-competitive, anti-consumer and certainly contrary to the basic principles of a global economy.

OK sure. In the same way, for example, that the same model of digital camera sells for entirely different prices around the world? And I am talking about *the exact same model*, which is NOT the case here!

There is nothing illegal about this. I suggest you let it go and move on.

Try the AF site - they let you start your trip from any city.

I just had the same problem - wanted to book AMS-BOS R/T and wanted to avoid the intl CC fees. Just ended up booking on AF and the prices were the same

This is absolutely not the same issue.

I just want to emphasize that this type of pricing on the basis of what is called "market segmentation" is absolutely normal for a market-based economy and a phenomenon that each student of Economics learns about. (Here the market segmentation arises from the fact that you can't book one-ways without paying a huge penalty, compared with return flights.)

In the airline business it is standard to price origin-destination pairs and not specific flights. (LAX-BRU is a different pair than BRU-LAX.)

To give a US-based example: All US carriers sell US-Australia return tickets cheaper than Australia-US returns.

Perhaps you're all correct, but that sort of business practice is considered to constitute illegal price fixing in many other contexts. It's anti-competitive, anti-consumer and certainly contrary to the basic principles of a global economy.

OMG! No it's not! This is exactly why the US government stopped regulating airfares (Wiki: Airline Deregulation Act, 1978 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airline_Deregulation_Act)).

The idea still lingers that flying A-B-A should cost the same as flying B-A-B. The fact is, when the rules only allowed this fare pricing, all routes were far more expensive, there was less competition, less choice, less frequency - the traveller was being screwed!

But even (if on a very small number of routes) the fares were set at exactly the same level for both directions (and I think you would take a long time looking before you would find a route where this is the case), did you ever consider that you're not actually buying the same product?

On a certain date, there may be far more people already booked to travel on the route A-B than on the route B-A, so prices will, of course, have gone up on the A-B route. As I'm sure you know, there are a range of fares available on each flight, and not all seats are sold at the same price. So even if the fares are the same, the availability of the lowest fares may be gone, giving you an "anti-competitive, illegally-price-fixed" difference in fares on a route that has the same fares.

Perhaps you're all correct, but that sort of business practice is considered to constitute illegal price fixing in many other contexts. It's anti-competitive, anti-consumer and certainly contrary to the basic principles of a global economy.

Thanks for the chuckle this morning.

The OP did not state the fare codes, so this might be a case of inventory availability being different for the codeshare. Check this as well as whether slightly different dates or connecting flights make a significant difference in the fare. Would flying into another city and taking the train to Brussels work? Another trick, which probably will not work for this itinerary, is to explore the purchase of two one way tickets rather than a RT.

However, I suspect as others have mentioned above, that it's a matter of different price elasticities in the two markets.

This is really just a case of demand for a route or demand in a particular country. Here in the Netherlands it is often cheaper to buy a KLM ticket departing from Belgium than one departing from the Netherlands, even though you're on the exact same flight, KLM buys a train ticket for you to go from Brussels to Amsterdam. Flight + international train ticket is sometimes up to 35% cheaper than the same flight without the train journey. This is just a result of overall lower prices for tickets in Belgium than the Netherlands, so KLM has to think of something to be able to sell tickets in Belgium.

In this particular case they're just able to sell the Business Class tickets for more in LA than in Brussels, all airlines charge a lot more if you depart from LA rather than from Brussels. It's not the case for economy, there the prices are very similar both ways.

I think in our answers we should bear in mind that the OP is apparently fairly new on FT so while his interpretation is, I'm afraid, clearly wrong, I thought a bit of additional explaination might help. I think where you (steve9000)are misinterpreting the issue is in thinking that the price of a ticket = the sum of the prices of its different segments. It is simply not so and particularly not on international travel. What you buy is a ticket for the full itinerary, so price depends on conditions such as availability, time of your local stay, change/cancellation conditions, and as others have mentioned commercial rules including the existence at time t of promotional fares from specific market to specific destinations. Example. If I want to fly AMS-LAX-AMS with both outbound and return on 15 May, the price will be immensely superior than if I check the apparent segment pricing based on the AMS-LAX return of a LAX-AMS-LAX segment on 8-15 May+ the outbound pricing of a LAX-AMS-LAX ticket on 15-22. Similarly, you can get a C promotion from Belgium at a time when there is not C promotion from the US and vice-versa. Finally, in this context, let me assure you that if anything, promotions are often more readily available on US-EU tickets than on EU-US ones. For instance, in recent months, US travellers benefited from huge C discounts for Thanksgiving and xmas/New Year periods on KLM and partners while during the same periods, European travellers had absolutely nothing (except for the brief promo match of some BA xmas promotion from the UK market and of a LH promotion for xmas travelling).

KLM is in a revenue-sharing JV with DL, AF and AZ. They can't effectively "sock it to Americans" just like DL can't sock it to Europeans, because the prices are aligned.

The airline pricing model is very complex, and is one based on the market, competition, availability, and much less on the actual origin, destination, distance flown, etc.