Most expensive flights on CPM basis
 

We have a current thread in the (sparsely visited) China forum about flights from London to (anywhere in) China.

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/chin...don-china.html

Like many of you, I enjoy this type of challenge and initially felt that my Thailand idea was solid (e.g. get in some nice beach time and avoid paying $10k+).

I was humbled to learn how wrong I was. In fact, apart from Taiwan (need a business visa or Taiwan passport to pull off), Russia (good luck getting there in the first place), Sri Lanka (fuel shortage means he might end up getting stuck in Columbo), and Belarus/various 'stans (no thanks), every single flight into Mainland China costs at least $4k.

I was curious about which one of these was the most expensive in terms of cost per mile.

$4,600 for ICN-TAO (347 miles) was the winner at $13.26 per mile.

But, then SXM-SBH occurred to me; $256 for 20 miles = $12.80 per mile. I almost feel like it's unfair to compare St. Barth, Martha's Vineyard, or random outposts in Alaska with Qingdao (an actual city), so maybe a ~250-mile minimum should be in order for this exercise.

I'm curious to hear your responses wrt both puddle jumpers and flights between major cities. We're talking about economy class only.

Playing with it in the US and using ITA Matrix to return Y Fares and knowing that some of these are shortest routes in the US with regularly scheduled service:

AA: DFW-ACT (Waco, TX), $1017, 89 miles -> $11.43/mile

UA: SFO-STS (Santa Rosa, CA): $649, 66 miles -> $9.83/mile

AA & UA: ORD-MKE: $649, 67 miles -> ~$9.67/mile

UA: DEN-COS (Colorado Springs): $649, 73 miles -> $8.89/mile

DL: DTW-LAN (Lansing, MI), $599, 74 miles -> ~$8.09/mile

I ignored the "250 miles" rule because in the US, two of our largest and most important cities, NYC (LGA, EWR, and JFK) and DC (DCA) are about 200 miles apart yet have a high number of O&D traffic.

On Monday, 18 July:
LGA-DCA (214 miles) on JetBlue: $857 or ~$4.00/mile.
EWR-DCA (199 miles) on United: $659 or ~$3.31/mile
JFK-DCA (213 miles) on JetBlue: $979 or ~$4.60/mile

Similar for NYC-BOS, another city pair under 200 miles in the US with high O&D traffic:
JFK-BOS (187 miles) on JetBlue: $1245 or ~$6.77/mile
LGA-BOS (184 miles) on JetBlue: $1324 or ~$7.20/mile
EWR-BOS (200 miles) on JetBlue: $891 or ~$4.46/mile


Looking at our neighbors to the north in Canada for a couple shorter routes with air service:
YOW-YUL (Ottawa to Montreal) (94 miles): $1113 Canadian Dollars = $854 USD = $9.09/miles
YY-J-YVR (Victoria to Vancouver) (39 miles): $630 Canadian Dollars = $483 USD = $12.38/mile

Ive done DTW-LAN as part of a LGW-DTW-LAN routing.

I didn't pay $599 :p

A key point about fares on flights TO China (leaving China is a different story) and also SXM-SBH, BOS-MVY, KTN-WRG, etc is that full fare (not always coded as Y though) is the only option.

I’ve done DTW-FNT (56 miles) as part of some XXX-DTW-FNT tickets because a ticket to FNT via DTW was hundreds of dollars cheaper than a ticket to DTW. Also did DAY-CVG-XXX for the same reason.

My shortest O&D city pair is HNL-OGG/OGG-HNL (100 miles) followed by some other island hoppers around Hawaii.

My shortest O&D flight that didn’t involve Hawaii was still a hop between two island: DUB to GLA at 185 miles.

My shortest O&D flight in the mainland US is SEA-GEG, at 224 miles, which I did a few times (all for work).

My shortest O&D city pair is DAY-GRR at 216 miles but I flew via MSP (DTW was also an option but times weren’t as good). The routing took me over 980 miles. But I really had no desire to drive. ;)

My spouse frequently did SEA-YKM (103 miles) and SEA-PSC (172 miles) as a city pair for work, especially in the winter when the highway pass on I-90 through the mountains would often be closed.