Originally Posted by
nombody
I think this interesting - OAG says that NY-TLV is the most underserved route in the US because there were 239,000 one-stop tickets purchased for the route in addition to 432,000 non-stop tickets. However we also see that Delta's additional flight 4 times a week is being dropped in the fall. So not sure how that squares away with it being an underserved route.
http://www.travelweekly.com/Travel-N...airline-routes
Topping the list was Jakarta, Indonesia, to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, with 280,000 one-stop bookings in 2015. The first U.S. market appears at number two, as some 239,000 one-stop ticket segments were purchased for flights between New York Kennedy and Tel Aviv. By comparison, 432,000 people flew nonstop between those two airports.
Can't say I'm particularly surprised by this. A one-stop ticket is often $300-$500 cheaper than a nonstop depending on the destination. When traveling with a family of 4, that's a huge difference. I flew AF TLV-CDG-JFK for Passover this year and even including two rooms at the CDG Sheraton overnight on the way there it was still about $2000 cheaper to stop over.
A flight in J from TLV-LAX can be $7,000 on LY vs. $3,500 on BA. More competition is definitely needed to narrow the gap. I don't mind paying a little more for a nonstop (see the suceess of UA's flight to SFO) but too much more and it's just begging for a stopover.