definition advice - a fare
 

I came across the following definition of a "Fare" and don't understand why it refers to a Fares as ONE-WAY?

"The basic unit of pricing, a “fare,” is defined to be the price of one-way travel between two cities".

My understanding is that fares are filed as OW, RT and half RT? Can someone please help me with what I'm missing here?
Thanks.

Welcome to FT.

Where did you see that particular definition?

Welcome to Flyertalk.

If you look at other definitions of "fare" you'll see a variety -- the price you pay for a trip on commercial transportation, the cost of travel, the money paid for a journey.

And I don't mean to be flip, but definitions are based on historic usage, which means they evolve with time. That's why we call those mobile devices we all carry around "phones." Dictionary.com defines it as, "an apparatus, system, or process for transmission of sound or speech to a distant point, especially by an electric device." Well, I use my phone on a daily basis, yet rarely use it to transmit sound or speech. But it's still a phone. Airlines may have many types of fares, and yes, some of those will be based on round-trip usage. If it bothers you, you can lobby the airline to stop using the word fare in connection with roundtrip tickets, or you could lobby the dictionary to change its definition. I don't know that you'd be successful in either event, but I imagine you'd have more luck with the dictionary than the hundreds of airlines and billions of people who use the word "fare" when discussing some tickets that go from Point A to Point B to Point Something else.

Where on earth does this come from?

There is no such thing as "a fare" there is "the fare" and that is a colloquialism for the price of a ticket which is evidence of payment for travel between at least two points, perhaps more.

Having done this in a past life for a living, that looks like an ATPCO definition of a fare. ATPCO being a clearing house of sorts for airline pricing, this definition is technical, but would be of no practical use to a passenger.

I found it here: http://www.msri.org/people/members/s...s/airfares.pdf

ok, and in the case of a roundtrip the fare is valid for travel in both directions....right? What I'm driving at with my initial question is why it mentions 'one-way'.

I'm just trying to get this right in my head. For a simple roundtrip there a fare could be filed for: Point A to Point B to Point A - and that is a Round trip Fare. Correct.

What is your question? Don't get bogged down in definitions. What are you trying to do and what is catching you up? Specific route, dates, and all the details will get you better advice than abstractions.