Originally Posted by
travellerK
I am currently travelling to from the NYC area to NRT approximately every 6 months (I go Business class).
AC's price seems to be consistently around $3300 (USD) for the trip, while everyone else starts at around $5500 and it goes up rapidly from there.
Does anyone know why AC is so much less expensive (its not like the lie flat pods are an inferior product)?
Can I plan based on this or are their prices going to catch up?
I'm going to advance a few related hypotheses.
1) The Japanese economy is weak.
2) To capture any Japan traffic in the NYC area - which has nonstops to Japan - AC must significantly undercut those nonstop prices. This is a standard airline pricing tactic in such situations.
3) Air Canada is initiating service to Tokyo-Haneda in January without reducing capacity to Narita. So it has more J capacity to fill. Winter is also a slower season than spring or early fall for business traffic.
4) Take all the above reasons and overlay it on AC's strategy to win more US connecting traffic for its international network. For that, it has to entice a lot of Americans to at least try the product and connections at its hubs. Most Americans would think nothing of connecting in Asia at a European or mideast airport, but Canada isn't a connection possibility they think of instinctively.
As to whether this pricing will last, I suspect it will until the world economy is in a stronger recovery, but that's strictly guesswork on my part.