...And for that matter YYZ, SNA, and other "extortion" airports! I'm talking about airports where the right to land there costs a 50% or more premium over nearby airports.

OK, maybe SNA and YYZ make sense. SNA has limited access, but yet is extremely popular. LAX has the capacity, but is avoided by everyone not in the immediate L.A. area. And YYZ has lottsa extra charges. Hey, the Canucks gotta pay for that National Health Care some way!

But Boston Logan flights are traditionally outrageous! MHT and PVD flights, only a few miles away are 50% less.

I'm sure a lot of it is the "WN Factor." Southwest doesn't fly into Logan or Pierson, but they do fly into MHT and BUF.

Other than the "WN Factor," do you gurus have any other explanation? Especially with Logan. Prices there are just plain nuts!

BOS is a much larger airport with a lot more direct flights...

The whole idea of price discrimination is that you go elsewhere if the price too much. Economics 101.

Since this is not really a UA topic, I am moving this to TravelBuzz!

iluv2fly
Moderator, UA

And LAX is a much bigger airport than SNA, with a lot more direct flights. Ditto with ORD over MDW. And DFW over DAL. And IAH over Hobby and Ellington. End of analogy!

I don't know what you're talking about!

If you look at MHT-ORD and MHT-BOS fares on UA, you'll find that flying out of MHT usually costs MORE than flying out of BOS.

This is just from experience in trying to find cheap L fares for MR's.

OP is not about fares. OP is about landing fees.

Agreed!

When I lived out west, and flew back to PVD a few times a year, I always checked the fares to PVD and to BOS. Sometimes PVD was less, but there were many times that BOS was less! (And this was after WN started flying to PVD.)

But shouldn't higher landing fees usually mean higher fares?

It's not just BOS. CVG is in a similar situation: it's always cheaper to fly out of (and into) DAY or CMH.

Agreed here too! Whereas MHT is only about 25 minutes away from my home, I'd much rather use that airport over driving to Logan (BOS). However, out of the 8 trips I've taken (or have scheduled) this year, all but one of them were substantially cheaper out of BOS, thus making it worthwhile for me to fly out of that airport instead, despite the extra 35 minutes travel time. I do have one upcoming flight out of MHT, but I only chose that because the price was only a few dollars more than BOS, and so it wasn't worth the extra travel to Boston.

The landing fee at Logan is $3.89 per 1,000 lbs. of aircraft weight. That translates to about $470 for a 737-300, about $1,550 for a 767. The difference between this and the fee at an alternate airport is obviously a fraction of these amounts: small potatoes in the overall scheme of things. Marketing considerations, such as but not limited to competition, make a much bigger difference.

I seriously doubt landing fees have anything to do with air fares. As previously stated they are a relatively small fraction of the overall price of operating the flight.

I live closer to MHT then BOS but I usually end up flying out of BOS because there is more frequency and more non-stops. However, if I were willing to fly WN I would end up at MHT more.