<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by westcoastman:
Cheap fares to the bay area seem to disappeared only a few months ago. After securing a $125 SEA-OAK fare for a friend I waited over 2 months for fares for SNA - OAK to go below $173 but ended up paying nearly $200 for a weekend RT on this one hour flight. Jet Blue and Southwest both have $29 each way.</font>
The Bay Area to Southern California is another matter entirely. UA/WN/B6 are consistently more than 50% less than the AS and AS/AA codeshare flights. Probably because there's only 10 or so flights a day between SFO/OAK and Southern California locations. I understand that AS tries not to compete with the low fare carriers on these routes - which is too bad considering they're likely to be the dominant force in the industry in the long run.