Originally Posted by
ajl1239
Perhaps a silly question, but we're at a point now where most trans-Atlantic trips from major U.S. cities -- purchased with a bit of foresight -- are under $500 RT. You can even fly from crazy places like Providence to Edinburgh, Scotland one-way for $109 with little advance planning.
At the same time, U.S. carriers still charge insane last-minute fares from say NYC to Atlanta, let alone NYC to LAX or SFO.
I guess my question: given how cheap international travel is (even with the extra fees and taxes added into the equation), how much longer can U.S. carriers justify their insane domestic pricing? At what point will they have to cut prices nearly in half to bring them closer to intra-EU/Schengen flights?
You're comparing one fare purchased well in a advance ("with a bit of foresight") to another fare that's last-minute. That's what term "comparing apples to oranges" was created for.
Also, as someone who lives on the West Coast, I disagree with your assertion that these low fares to Europe are from "most American cities". No, only from cities fairly close to Europe (like your Providence and NYC examples). Meanwhile, you picked about as far-away a domestic city to NYC as you could. Again, apples to oranges.
The first seat sold on the plane almost always costs significantly less than the last seat sold on the plane, no matter what the route. (The exceptions are when the airline thinks the route is going to sell well but for some reason it doesn't. And the other exceptions can be in premium cabins, where there's very few seats comparatively to begin with and it's expected to mostly be bought by business travelers, not leisure travelers like with far-in-advance economy fares.)
Meanwhile, given the size of Europe compared to the size of the US, the equivalent of intra-Europe would be more like intra-Texas, rather than trans-USA. And intra-Texas is how Southwest Airlines got started (and it flew nothing but intra-Texas for many of its early years).