USA flights expensive?
 

I'm looking at flying from Washington to Charleston, SC next Summer (early August) and the cheapest flight from looking so far seems to be $118, plus $25 for checked baggage - flying with American Airlines on a Sunday.

As someone used to the European Low Cost Carriers this seems really expensive to me; are the prices going to come down any more or is this likely to be the best it will get? I saw JetBlue.com aren't on sale yet, but looking at a random Sunday in June when they are on sale it still looks very expensive. Is this down to travelling in a high season, lack of competition, or similar?

This is not expensive, not at all.

Bar Spirit or Frontier (neither of whom serve CHS currently, but F9 are due to start in February but not from Washington) you don't have airlines selling fares for a few dollars as it the case with Ryanair et.al.

Will it come down? Who knows, if it does it might only be by a few dollars but the fully flexible walk up fares that it could well go to are several multiples of that $118 figure.

Seems like a fantastic deal to me. I don't know if you can even drive the 500+ miles for that cheap.

I’m a bit stunned that someone would think $118 is an expensive fare. That is dirt cheap.

I can however understand that someone used to dirt cheap fares of European LCC might get the impression of only having to pay ~50$ for a return flight of that distance. But good look finding those fares on domestic routes in the US...

You have some time to monitor fares if you'd like, but that seems like a really good price particularly as it's still peak summer vacation season.

Just be careful that you don't book a Basic Economy fare that the Big 3 are pushing now, as those have restrictions on baggage, advance seating, and other things that may or may not make it worth the small savings from a regular economy fare, depending on your needs. However this should be clearly called out on the website before you finalize a booking.

We don't generally have the super low fares of European LCCs...nor do we have cheap, widespread, and efficient rail service. OTOH if you're coming from the UK or EU at least the exchange rate is in your favor, for what it's worth!:)

typically, $118 for a ~500-mile flight is indeed a good deal, and as others have indicated it’s unlikely to come down significantly in the next six to eight months ... also, as others have indicated, OP should make certain that this isn’t the dreaded “Basic Economy” fare to which every imaginable amenity has to be added

for the sake of comparison, both Columbia SC and Savannah GA are within about an hour’s drive of Charleston, and I’d guess would have similar pricing at this point in time ... I suspect OP might find $89-$99 fares to ATL, but I wouldn’t subject myself to Hartsfield and 3+ hours (?) on I-20 for that savings

Please return to the reality of the U.S. This is not Europe.

Beside the market is very much different.

That's a great price!

It’s not bad for this route. CHS is an expensive city for me to get flights to from further up North and from the Midwest, and it’s such that I save money by buying miles for redeeming for flights to/from CHS.

Plus the high cost of transit to faraway obscure airports, plus service fee, plus baggage charges, plus check-in fee, plus boarding pass print fee, plus security fee, plus inflight F&B fee... Europe is different.

You should try flying domestically in Canada......heh.

US airfares, even after our 22% forex cost, are a good deal.

+1. Anyone who thinks $118 is expensive for a flight is in for a shock when booking a domestic flight in Canada.

Those LCC fares are also *typically* offered only on the ultra-mass-market tourist routes. Like anything from UK to any Spanish island.

Which is not dissimilar to the cheap fares to Las Vegas from the SF Bay Area.

Good look getting LCC to carry you from Bucharest to Frankfurt for $118.

Bucharest to Frankfurt you get for $90, if you fly to Dortmund its $30.

US and Canada are super expensive compared to the rest of the world. Suppose management has bigger pockets.

Don't underestimate the impact of Chapter 11 and protectionist regulations allowing the legacy airlines to retain market control in a way which wouldn't be allowed in any other environment. It's analogous to markets which retain state-run airlines, crowding out alternatives.

Depending on where you are staying in Washington, there is a BWI-CHS flight on Southwest. I got a $39 promo fare on that once but it was a rarity and you'll have the cost and time of getting to BWI.

$118 is probably about as good as you're going to get and I'd just book that. FWIW, it would not strike me as expensive at all.

$118 is expensive? :rolleyes:

Seems people in US are not quite aware how cheap airfares on LCC could be. As a proof - I had round trip flight from Johor, Malaysia to Saigon (HCMC) which no checked luggage. I paid equivalent of of USD $50 for it.

People are aware, it's just not relevant to the WAS-CHS market and the OP wondering if their WAS-CHS ticket price is a good deal or not.

That was about as low as it would routinely get to fly DCA-LGA/LGA-DCA (roundtrip either direction) even in the 1990s unless using the government negotiated fare or some negotiated fare for some very large private sector employers. And flights between those areas then had the benefit of having train and bus competition and plenty of competition given the BWI/DCA/IAD-EWR/ISP/JFK/LGA flight options at the time.

I'd say $118 is relatively cheap for a domestic roundtrip flight.

I wouldn't buy just yet, but I'd check two options on a regular basis.

One is Jetblue DCA-CHS. I've seen weekday fares as low as $59 for that non-stop. Sundays, especially in the summer, will be more expensive.

The other is Southwest BWI-CHS. Same as Jetblue, but from a different airport, and no charge for your checked luggage.

$118 is what I would expect to pay, especially this far out. Charleston is a great tourist destination, and Sunday flights in August don't seem to be the kind of flights likely to have deep discounted fares.

So keep checking for a while, to see if anything develops, but don't wait too long before pulling the trigger.

What does your flight from Malaysia to Saigon have to do with the US domestic market?

The OP got his answer very early on. The thread has now developed (as threads do) and the discussion has moved on to also compare prices elsewhere.

No need to be sensitive if it's pointed out how much passengers in the USA are being dumped on by their airlines in comparison to many other places.

Not too many LCCs/ULCCs for various reasons including consumer preference?

I imagine labour costs have something to do with it too (haven't seen comparative breakdowns of cost per ASM/ASK).

The closest one gets to those airfares is Spirit Airlines but I think most would rather drive.

That is a good number, you will spend more than the $118 in man hours trying to save a few bucks

I disagree that it's super expensive compared to the rest of the world.

I've lived in NZ and Australia, and to test your theory I tried a mainline QF search for AU and NZ search for, uh, NZ (as OP used AA not WN or similar, I excluded LCCs like JQ).

For a one way flight between BNE and SYD (467mi according to Great Circle) during a Sunday in Summer (February here) it was $125 AUD to $245 AUD one way sale fare depending on time of day. QF was also happy to sell me JQ tickets for $114 AUD to $130 AUD.

For a one way flight in NZ between AKL and CHC (463mi) on the same day, $109 NZD to $429 NZD depending on time of day (I used the lowest fare including a checked bag).

Not really. The European LCCs have very low fares on all routes if you book early enough. My regular MAN-EIN can be had for £9.99 sometimes. I tried to book another flight recently, and it was £200+.

The fact that topic started with - very affordable air travel is available at both developed world (Europe) and developing world as well. Yet for whatever reason, this has not arrived to US.

Just 20 min ago I booked one way flight KUL-SIN for appx US $21.

That is regular fare, if it would be sale, I could get the same ticket for less than $10 - that 35MYR fare is dropped to 1MYR.


We already had topic about cheap airfares here:
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trav...ue-ticket.html

Doesn't Australia have a dearth of mainline carriers as well, just like the US?

Another possible factor is that spread out population density in the US means that there often isn't any real comparable train (or bus) service to compete with airfare prices. (At least compared to Europe)

Thank you all for your replies; I suppose it highlights the cultural differences and expectations when it comes to prices!