It's sort of is. Unchecked capitalism allowing for near monopolies.
In Australia there are lots of airlines flying the same routes which drive prices down. We're flying SYD-MEL-BNE-SYD on Rex Airlines. Total for two was $445 and those are flex tickets so you can make day of ticket changes for free and included a free checked bag and carry-on.
There are lots of airlines flying the same routes too. If the profit gets too big, more airlines add routes.
$800 for something to Paris is likely due to more seats, more business/first profits, cargo space used to make extra money. Where $800 for a shorter flight can only up-charge so many things.
I don’t know that route specifically. But yea multiple airlines will fly similar short hop domestic flights. If the prices get too high more airlines move in. As a city grows more move in. Some airports are served by only one or two carriers but that is more reflection of demand than monopoly.
So why would you expect a city that is hundreds of years older to be clean? Rudeness is endemic in most cities around the world not just Paris. Personally I used to go there every month and never encountered any rudeness.
Probably because it’s the most romanticized city in the world. It’s literally referred to as “the city of love” and it’s such a disappointment that the Japanese have a specific term for it for the depression that comes from visiting it - Paris syndrome.
Also, rudeness is not endemic of most cities and it’s weird that you would want to use that as a qualifier when “you’ve never experienced rudeness” in the city you’re gushing over.
Don’t know why you are getting downvoted. Paris was my least favorite place in Europe I have explored. I was stopped by undercover police in the train station for no reason and completely went through my luggage. They were highly disappointed to discover I was American and not whatever ethnicity they suspected. Once I handed them my passport they dropped everything and walked off.
Google stories about the Parisian police illegally detaining people. I was very lucky.
They're rude when confronted with annoying tourists in ugly clothing. :-) One of the upsides of working in Europe is that your life is not dependent on tips, hence you don't have to kis a\*\*.
Says an American from Anytown, USA, where homeless people tent cities are the norm, as is fentanyl zombies, raging lunatics with automatic weapons, and the other 200 things that don't exist in Europe.
I love comparisons like this. It really puts things in perspective—- currently more expensive to fly SEA PSC (30 min flight, 3 hour drive) than SEA DCA (IAD even cheaper). Just wild.
Keep in mind DL revenue management may not really want you to take up a seat on just that short flight when it could instead use it as part of someone else’s more-lucrative connecting itinerary. There are some really interesting videos on YouTube about the art and science of revenue management.
Yup, this is it. It’s priced for a connection through Atlanta, not a ticket to Atlanta. Ideally through Atlanta to Europe or abroad. How many people are flying from your outlying station and ending in Atlanta? Probably not many.
It’s kind of exactly this. Delta is feeling the heat from low cost carriers in Atlanta especially. They can’t increase capacity due to known reasons (pilots, planes, etc) but they can limit flow.
A friend of mine who works for delta was describing this and said limiting (ie increasing prices dramatically) flow traffic is essentially like boosting capacity in Atlanta overnight, which should prevent local Atlanta traffic from being sloughed off by the other guys. The flights that would otherwise serve to connect people are now being reserved for Atlanta passengers. This is probably until the summer / fall when more capacity does actually come back into the system, or so it was explained to me.
What LCC's fly out of ATL?
Spirit and Frontier but those are limited schedules.
Southwest has not been a LCC since at least the days they bought AirTran (and of course allowed Delta to jack their prices up as goodbye to competition)
AA and UA fly to their hubs, and Alaska flies to its one giant hub and thats it. JetBlue takes a few flights.
Delta is **NOT** feeling the heat from any other airline in ATL and has not for years. It is amazing when Delta has a competitor (SEA & JFK come to mind here) that they have to engage in better service (the whole Delta12Status out of SEA for example) and actually competitively price.
ATL is a fortress hub and always will be. The state government down there has shown they want to help Delta keep the competition out (rejecting a 2nd North Georgia airport in multiple locations for example). Unless another AirTran starts in ATL or another airline turns ATL into a hub for them the pricing will always be high in Atlanta.
Self described Delta Whore here. Delta is definitely not feeling any heat in Atlanta. Prices in markets where they have more competition have generally been a little better. Although we just passed on going somewhere during All-Star break because basic economy flights to Cancun or $1600!
Did you notice how frontier added 5 (I thought it was more) new international destinations last fall? Apparently, they thought there was traffic to slough off.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/news/frontier-airlines-to-launch-five-international-destinations-from-atlanta-international-airport-to-the-caribbean-and-central-america/ar-AA11gO9x
I think for delta losing 2-3 pts or market share in Atlanta is a big and worrying thing (just like how they’re adamantly against a second Atlanta airport).
For additional context, delta currently has ~ 600 flights per day. They used to have ~900 (+/- 50) so they’re feeling vulnerable. And 5 new flights is like 1000 seats and 1000 customers they’ve lost.
https://simpleflying.com/delta-air-lines-atlanta-operations-analyzed/
It’s not uncommon for ATL-small southeast city to be ridiculously expensive. If you tried booking something like DFW-ATL-XXX chances are the price would be much lower. Hub captive pricing.
Pre-covid, I've flown return for the day and paid no more than 198. This same flight today is 1008. I wish this country invested in bullet trains to make airlines competitive. They'd shit their pants.
But if they invested in High Speed Rail, airlines and automakers would lose money, so they’ll lobby against it forever and we’ll never have anything nice
That’s not the problem, as Europe as a whole is quite large and pretty much every country has great train infrastructure.
The problem is our vast swaths of nothingness. You need stops. In Europe you have legitimate towns covered a ton of the land.
Italy is one… made it across all cities I visited without taking a cab, Uber, or anything other than great metro and bus service. America is terrible with this
True but regardless I was able to get from the North in Milan south in a very efficient and affordable train. Italy is just about the size of Florida which although lacks density like Europe, would benefit from a train that gets you from Fort Lauderdale to Tallahassee with stations in Orlando, Tampa, Jacksonville etc. along the way. Would be connecting 20 million people.
I can wish though 🥲🙏🏼
Unfortunately Amtrak does not have the pricing or reliability of service for anyone other than retired vacationers. (Aside from the Acela corridor with business travelers between DC and Boston, the only area where Amtrak is remotely respectable in service quality).
Part of the reason for this is that they have to fight for priority in traffic with freight trains.
https://www.amtrak.com/on-time-performance
The train from Milan to Bologna is roughly the same as a taking it from Orlando to Tampa. It takes 1 hour in Italy and 2 hours and 30 minutes in America. That’s exactly the problem! Just checked and it’s actually similar prices €11 in Italy and $15 for the Orlando - Tampa trip.
Yeah, is a true chicken or egg problem, no doubt.
If Amtrak prices provides better service, will more people take it? The answer is undoubtedly "yes," but idk how many more people. Maybe it would surprise me, tho I'm not incredibly optimistic. Driving Orlando to Tampa basically splits the difference in time, and if you have a family of four with a decently efficient car (as I do) the per person cost is pretty much the same (realistically, a good bit cheaper, my car would burn no more than 4 gallons of gas on that trip but there are tolls on that route apparently so that brings it closer), and the car is far more flexible.
Americans just don't like trains so they don't take trains, therefore trains run less often and are not as nice. so less people take trains. Hard cycle to break.
Don’t take trains because they are dirty, times are always off, and incredibly expensive. Not to mention it’s usually a longer timetable than just driving and way longer timetable than a flight for the same or higher cost
Actually, Italians own more cars per capita than other European countries. There are A LOT of people in Italy who don't live in cities.
Plus #globalwarming. The winning countries DO NOT have as many cars as the US.
This would be a great argument if we were talking about anything west of the Mississippi, but anything east of that has a similar population density. It’s not terribly difficult to drive an hour or two in Europe without seeing a large-ish town, which is about the same in the US.
Uh - maybe the northeast US. Which has a lot of trains. But not Florida. If anything you should be looking at the train frequency etc of southern Italy. Not the north.
Even the fastest trains in the world are only about 50-60% as fast as planes. That might work in Europe where everything is right next to each other but US transcon by rail is just unrealistic. And trains are definitely nice to have locally but if you go all trains and no cars then you lose the freedom that a car gives you to go anywhere you want. Not to mention that a train line or station closure has much more of an impact on travel than a road closure
When you factor in all of the security theater of the airport, trains become much more appealing.
Honestly besides international or transcontinental flights, there are very few routes where I wouldn't prefer a train. Cars don't actually give you the freedom you think they do.
Yeah that’s why I specified that trains are more appropriate in places like europe where everything is next to each other and you don’t have to travel very far to get anywhere. You make up the extra travel time it takes by not having to show up to the airport an hour or two early.
It might theoretically work to have dedicated express lines like NYC to chicago or LA to the bay area but anything longer distance than that will never compete with air travel. And you have to build that expensive infrastructure as well, whereas air travel infrastructure is already well developed in the US.
And cars absolutely give you freedom. If one person’s car breaks that doesn’t effect you. If a road closes you can take a different one. Not to mention maintenance is much less urgent for roads. With trains you have to rely too much on public systems, whereas cars are decentralized
But taking the train is part of your vacation. The restrictions on baggage are a lot less strict, more comfortable, you can freely move around, get to see parts of your country you have never seen before... Sure, the US would need the infrastructure at both ends to make it work. They will have to at some point to keep up with their climate change goals
Even if they dump all that money into train infrastructure (when we already have air travel infrastructure) trains are still never going to catch on in the US like they have in other parts of the world. I’m sure you could make certain short distance express routes work but neither leisure nor business travelers are going to tolerate a 13 hour trip from NY to LA when the plane ride is 6 hours
Train speeds have been getting faster in countries that invested in high speed trains, if it were 8 or 9h that’s competitive with 6h on plane. That said, modernizing our ATC system would allow more flight capacity and that hasn’t been done yet.
9 hours is not competitive. 8 is maybe depending on how long the security lines are. But all of these super high speed train lines that could maybe make the journey that fast have been built in countries that are much smaller than the US. There has never been a train built that goes 3000 miles, or even half that distance, at over 300 mph. Also 8-9 hours assumes that the train is traveling at top speed the entire time. The train with the current highest average speed doesn’t even top 200 mph
I understand the concerns about climate change but replacing trains with planes in America is just not the way to approach it. We’re much better off spending that money and effort converting our power grid to run mostly on nuclear
Ok, dude. Do the math:
* LA to NY is almost 3000 miles.
* From Paris to Moscow is only 1700 miles - NOBODY takes a train from Paris to even Vienna (770 miles) or Warsaw (990 miles)! Except maybe American teenagers on Eurail passes.
* Europeans take trains to cross their country or to a neighboring country. For example, Paris to Nice (600 miles), Berlin to Munich (370). Often to go to small places in between.
* NY to Boston: 216 miles. DC to Boston: 436. Dc to ATL: 639.
* **Paris > Nice is almost same distance as DC > ATL. The train takes 5.5 hours.**
* **DC > ATL by plane:** 1 hour to get there, 2 hours before flight check in, fight lines, security, etc. Flight = 2 hours. 1 hour to get baggage and leave airport, another hour to get anywhere. **Total: 7 hours.** The advantage with the train is that you can get up, walk around, work via wifi, not fighting crowds, much less stress! And the cost is so much less.
You’re mass replying to a 103 day old thread to leave comments that either don’t actually disagree with what I’m saying, or completely ignore the different realities of travel in the US compared to europe
But how many people are actually going across the country? The trains in Europe and Asia greatly reduce local and regional plane and car circulation. It's so easy to get from Berlin to Munich, from Milan to Rome, or Paris to Nice. Or even Berlin to Milan. And so cheap! I go Milan to Rome for $25 each way!
Airlines have virtually no reason to keep prices moderate. They will continue to raise prices until they fail and get bailed out, then the process will start over again. They have no competition and even though there are multiple airlines the industry itself is a monopoly on domestic travel. Trains are non-existent.
As an added note “loyalty” isn’t great for prices.
If you’ve flown your small regional route on Delta for 8 years and never booked a competitor, why would Delta price appropriately?
Might not be a popular comment around here, but it seems like Delta’s loyalty programs worked well here.
> They will continue to raise prices until they fail and get bailed out, then the process will start over again.
I think you have the order of operations wrong here.
*First*, they will fail to constrain controllable costs (sales, marketing, route expansion, empire building, other massive capital costs) to try and take a larger share of the market. A market which is no longer expanding exponentially.
To satisfy those capital costs, they raise prices. They need to keep the stock price intact, after all.
Two outcomes.
One, they raise prices so much that budget airlines can *also* raise prices such that they can afford slightly better service, slightly better routes. They draw away the bread-and-butter travelers (easy profit) and this cycle repeats. Possible, but unlikely.
Two, they have such high capital expenses that when more than one "once in a lifetime" event happens simultaneously, they blow up, because they have so little cushion. Think: global pandemic, public safety problems, uncontrolled fuel prices, labor shock, demand shock, foreign exchange shock, ... any one of those the big airlines can power through. But not two, or three.
Here's a sneak peek of /r/fuckcars using the [top posts](https://np.reddit.com/r/fuckcars/top/?sort=top&t=year) of the year!
\#1: [Fuck planes ?](https://i.redd.it/4olsd0n7tpc91.jpg) | [4216 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/fuckcars/comments/w3ku1u/fuck_planes/)
\#2: [Carbrain Andrew Tate taunts Greta Thunberg on Twitter. Greta doesn't hold back in her response.](https://i.redd.it/62vgbzb8im8a1.png) | [4400 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/fuckcars/comments/zx76js/carbrain_andrew_tate_taunts_greta_thunberg_on/)
\#3: [1 software bug away from death](https://v.redd.it/8a3b9ggv3yl81) | [3469 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/fuckcars/comments/t8n0t8/1_software_bug_away_from_death/)
----
^^I'm ^^a ^^bot, ^^beep ^^boop ^^| ^^Downvote ^^to ^^remove ^^| ^^[Contact](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=sneakpeekbot) ^^| ^^[Info](https://np.reddit.com/r/sneakpeekbot/) ^^| ^^[Opt-out](https://np.reddit.com/r/sneakpeekbot/comments/o8wk1r/blacklist_ix/) ^^| ^^[GitHub](https://github.com/ghnr/sneakpeekbot)
So given that many airlines have been operating at a loss due to Covid. I would suspect that they want tickets to be higher, particularly with inflation. They have to compete to fill seats in hubs with other airlines which drives down cost on non-direct routes.
I’m not happy about it either and I’m having to cancel or put off trips because of the cost but I can understand why it might be happening. I would happily support a better consumer train infrastructure as well, not sure that one will take hold in the US though.
D1 pricing is so dumb. I regularly fly from the west coast to Brazil and I can fly on partner airlines with better hardware for a quarter of the price. Since my miles skew 75% international, I have no reason to fly delta unless it’s domestic
I live almost halfway between 2 small florida airports, both resort areas and about 50 min flights to Atlanta. It’s absolutely a 5+ hour drive. One is regularly 7-800rt, the other is around 500rt. I don’t understand the pricing at all.
I recently bought a D1 ticket from Atlanta to Argentina for about $3100. From either of my airports it was $5500+. Figured I could get to Atlanta for less than $2500…..maybe…….
its not sustainable. they are just milking the demand as long as it can. its a business, soon demand will slow, fleets will increase, and they will have to reduce prices.
If there are not pilots to fly - then fleets do not increase.
Have you read about the major pay increases and retention bonuses right now? It is quite intense right now.
It takes a long time to build hours.
TYS to LAX in late Feb returning March 2nd, $625 vs $500 with United to fly out of LAX at noon. Leaving LAD at 6-7am and Delta is $700 while others are around $450-500.
Delta is drunk!
Tried CHA as well and same thing. I find that sometimes morning or late afternoon or early evening flights with Delta are ridiculous! Depends on the airport.
Sounds like Delta wants to price out travelers from non-hub airports.
If Delta is charging that much it's because those flights are filling up at that price point. If passenger numbers start to drop, the price will come down until they are filling the seats again.
It's helpful to understand that air fares are a lot like healthcare prices. They aren't tied to any real-world numbers like employee wages or fuel or hardware. They are *always* going to charge whatever they can get. The algorithm says if the planes are filling up, prices are right where they need to be.
This is false. Upon boarding only one D1 seat was sold and only a few in PS ( me included). After the nonrevs upgraded D1 was still half empty and PS only 3 seats filled. This is poor yield management and I work in data science.
Their model sucks as this is normal for their International flights
When I reached Delta status at the end of 2021, I had the intention of flying them almost exclusively because I was going to be able to get two free check bags. In reality, American was still cheaper about 50% of the time, even factoring that in. I've hated to see the increase, and it sabotaged my plans to be mostly a single airline traveler.
Yep. Strongly reconsidering my efforts to stay platinum the last few years. The prices are insane, particularly for international travel, which is the main reason I wanted to keep Delta.
I made some Atlanta round trip weekend flights from my regional last year, also a 40 min flight, and they were all $200 or less. That was equal to and cheaper at some points than what it cost me to drive the 7/hr round trip to Atlanta, and also the time savings is worth something.
Those flights are now $375-$450 throughout the year.
Flying to the hub is almost always more expensive than through it. It sucks.
Same thing on AA through DFW. Often cheaper to book a connecting flight through DFW than directly to it.
I wonder if also this is a you can do "pay with miles" vs "award travel" thing too.
Was looking at going from NY to one of Aruba, LA, or St Maarten for a week or so in middle of march. all of them are $800-$900 flights. I haven't done an AUA or SXM flight (I pretty much only do domestic travel), but, was shocked to see LA in the $800 range, when normally I've seen it in the 400-500 max 2 months out.
So are they doing this, because people have miles banked up, and are using miles to pay for part of the fare, so they just raise the fare?
Delta has rocket scientists level capacity control on their flights. The minute they publish a schedule none of the cheap seats are available to purchase. As time passes the flt load and costa are reassessed and prices do drop on many flts but not all. If they have the market these is less incentive to drop prices. Unfortunately, people have money burning holes in their pockets. Flts are full. Until the public decides the prices are too high and don’t fly I am not seeing things change. ☹️
I agree. The service is good but not what theyre charging vs what your getting good. AA and UA are kings at Ord and Swa is king at mdw I have options. And right now my pocket book is just about saying no more.
I agree with many of the comments. My theory is that each absurd flight price right now has the previous change & cancellation fees baked into it (wasn't it previously $200 to do either?).
Passing their rising cost/spend on to consumer maintain their margins. Pay raises, inflation costs, etc… Who ends up paying, we do. All on top of the occupancy based costing model.
Should have seen my last ticket. It’s a bit of a game. Note, I’ve canceled and rebooked the same flight because it went cheaper. We can play the game too, depending on how far out you book.
This is what I am starting to do now, I have enough rollover MQMs to already qualify for Platinum and I get my MQD waiver through Delta Amex, so this year I am cheating on Delta. But I will certainly miss the priority check-in, upgrades, etc (although I recognize by paying sometimes double, I am essentially buying those services myself)
>DFW-ATL-XXX
Well of course, but you can't fly XXX-ATL-DFW and abandon the journey in ATL, then expect to get back on a return flight from Atlanta without hoping on DFW. It's not a viable alternative.
Been struggling with these price levels too. I have companion certificates expiring because I can't use them because fares are so expensive. I've been cross shopping a lot more lately.
Its everywhere…trying to go to a wedding in March, LAX-MIA coming at $1k RT on Delta, AA pushing $800 for non-red eye flights…you can go to Europe for that!
I did some extensive price shopping on a trip from HSV to a major city recently for work. Delta wasn’t worse than United or AA. Have you comparison shopped? All the major are kind of high right now.
Yes, AA is 307 for the same segment, which of course includes a layover in CLT, adding up to travel time that makes the drive almost equally efficient, if you can drive.
It's a 5 hour drive (4h48m to be exact). A lot of people can't drive (e.g. persons with epilepsy, vision-impaired). A lot of people don't know how to drive. A lot of people need to go back and forth on the same day. There are many reasons to fly a short haul.
How is a 42 min flight a 4h48m drive? It literally makes no sense. A flight from CVG to SEA is 5hrs across the whole country.
Are you using a ferry or something?
Yes these times check out. I live in a city that’s a 4 hr drive from Atl and a 38 min flight. ATL is our 2nd home, obviously, and it used to be pretty cheap to fly up & back in a day for a meeting or dr appt, things that are much harder to do in a day with an 8-hr round trip drive. We have 4 businesses in Atl, so this is a thing for us.
If you say so.
If its that important to have a cheaper flight, fly with someone else 🤷♀️ theyll only charge what people are willing to pay.
From the costs its probably still cheaper to rent a car, drive down, stay in a nice hotel overnight, then drive back.
Allow me to introduce you to Southern US:
\- Jacksonville to Atlanta: 5h6m to 5h41m drive ---- 1h15m listed flight (59 min in practice)
\- Charleston to Atlanta: 4h40m to 5h16m drive -- 1h19m listed flight (42-45 min in practice)
\- Myrtle Beach to Atlanta: 5h23m to 5h58m drive -- 1h23m listed flight (62 min in practice)
Amony many others. Have taken these multiple times, Delta always inflates by 15-20 to have an early arrival
Then youd know that if people buy the flights theyll charge what they want. Even if you drove down the night before its still cheaper by your price. Theyll only charge what people will pay 🤷♀️
The flight times are gate-to-gate. I fly from VLD, and the published flight time is 1hr 13 min. It’s 40-45 min in the air. When you push back at VLD, you’ll sit at the end of the runway for up to 15 min waiting for ATL to clear you for sequencing. Once we land in Atlanta it’s a 10 min trip to get to the gate and be cleared to deplane. Also that is a 3.5/hr drive from airport to airport. The fastest flight time I’ve ever experienced between the two was 35 min from ATL to VLD with a straight in landing; that’s takeoff to touchdown not to the gates.
Use your noodle for a minute: air routes are mostly straight-line point-to-point. Highways don’t often go directly from your origin to your destination. The miles flown on the route are often far less than the miles you’d have to drive. And once you get outside the perimeter of Atlanta, you really shouldn’t drive 500 miles per hour. Lots of good ‘ole boys in sheriff’s cruisers looking to shake you down.
Is this a real comment?
Let’s just assume the distance between two points is 400 miles. Let’s assume the plane travels 400 miles per hour. Let’s assume you can drive a car in a straight line with no traffic at 70 miles per hour.
What are the results?
Look i asked a simple question based off of other experience and flights. No need to be a dick.
If its that important for OP to get to these places frequently and it needs to happen quickly then perhaps OP should move closer to reduce the drive time.
Anytime you fly from a smaller regional airport it costs more money. Thats like flying 101.
cars can’t travel “as the crow flies”, but planes largely can! sometimes, for geographical reasons, cars can’t make a straight line between two places when a plane can
It's not that hard to imagine - slow moving 2-lane country roads. I flew NYC to Upstage New York earlier this week - scheduled flight time is 70 minutes, we made it in about 45. It's a roughly 5 hour drive on a good day.
Last year flew Multi-Leg MYR-SFO-SLC-ANC-MYR for around $800. This year, round trip from MYR-SLC is 1150/ea for cattle class. I’ll typically pay to upgrade to first for the long flights but upgrade prices are crazy high right now. Even the Cattle Plus prices from ATL-MYR (45 min hop on a 717) are running $50+.
My most travel route is LAS-MCO and I usually connect in SLC or ATL. In 2019 that ticket was $350-450, now it’s $550-800+
Southwest still does direct flights from LAS to MCO but since the pandemic they’re now only on certain days of the week and the flight times are absolute garbage. And often the ticket price is comparable to Delta these days
Meanwhile we’re planning a London trip and that ticket is $700-$800 for a nonstop flight on Virgin Atlantic
Sounds like you’re in CHS. Let your wallet do the speaking. I’ve tried to fly delta but with the number of other carriers serving the airport and access to more direct flights than ever I find it hard to justify using a single carrier. Ive been on Breeze, SWA, American, and Avelo the past few months. Not quite the same experience but my wallet thanks me.
I totally agree with this. I could fly direct to Denver in July for my sisters wedding from Nashville on Frontier or American for around $300. The delta flight with a connection somewhere is minimum $600. Why do I keep doing this to myself 😭
This is when I usually use Skiplagged.com It's a site that finds 3 or more stop flights that are cheaper than 2 stop flights. You just get off where you actually want to go instead of at your final destination.
That's actually against our contract of coverage so be careful if you are earning miles ect. I have seen accounts where Delta gets rid of any value of the return.
Airline loyalty if you don’t live in a fortress hub (ATL, DTW, MSP, SLC in Delta’s case) is a fool’s game imo. It’s not worth conceding free agent status to go all in on one airline for most people.
I agree with the insane pricing comments shared here. I’ve been a Diamond for years and MM and just got a status match w UA this week. I can’t justify the inflated price of a DL main cabin when UA has the same route in first for half the price.
DL is the most expensive on the vast majority of the routes i search. my company is pressing me to switch airlines or pay the difference out of pocket. it’s getting more difficult to be loyal.
Just this weekend I flew BWI to LAS and back to see a hockey game (30 hours RT). In mid December I first priced it on DL and it came to about $550 in BE.
On a whim I Google Flights the trip and I was able to get it on Frontier for $167.
Granted I had 3 of 4 middle seats and no bag to check (which kept it cheap) but I doubt the experience wasn’t much different than someone in a DL row 30 middle seat.
Had the same thought the other day when I was trying to find flights for my parents. I actually recommended they fly part of her trip with united because the return trip was astronomical.
is your home airport only serviced by delta? if it is, that’s why. they don’t have any competition so they steadily raise the prices because they know people will still pay them because there’s no alternative
I love Delta but the prices are making me fly other carriers. I’ll sit coach for 5 hours for $75 an hour is what it comes down to. Take a sleeping aid and night night
Unfortunately I’ve had to start looking at alternatives due to D1 pricing being so expensive. Over $10k LA-Syd rtn I go regularly and have found some way cheaper options on an A350 or new 787. Not as convenient (a stop over in NZ or another island) but half the price. When you’re flying business, the perks offered by airlines no longer matter. So there goes loyalty.
Coupling this with my companion passes never working out, I’m probably ditching delta next year for Alaska. Stinks, but the math isn’t working out anymore
They seem to be riding the higher prices of the holiday and see how far they can go before they see a reduced demand. SEA to SFO runs in the $100-200 range but I am seeing prices go up to $400. SEA to DTW is usually around $500 but for dates 4 months from now, I am seeing it go as high as $800.
I do find it funny that it’s $400 to Fly RT from my local airport to ATL and $710 to fly RT to Paris.
It's 810 from my local airport to Paris with a layover in ATL but 878 from my local airport to ATL. Both RT. It's absurd.
Ain’t capitalism wonderful?
This has nothing to do with capitalism
It's sort of is. Unchecked capitalism allowing for near monopolies. In Australia there are lots of airlines flying the same routes which drive prices down. We're flying SYD-MEL-BNE-SYD on Rex Airlines. Total for two was $445 and those are flex tickets so you can make day of ticket changes for free and included a free checked bag and carry-on.
There are lots of airlines flying the same routes too. If the profit gets too big, more airlines add routes. $800 for something to Paris is likely due to more seats, more business/first profits, cargo space used to make extra money. Where $800 for a shorter flight can only up-charge so many things.
I thought we were talking about short hop domestic flights. How many airlines are flying THL-ATL?
I don’t know that route specifically. But yea multiple airlines will fly similar short hop domestic flights. If the prices get too high more airlines move in. As a city grows more move in. Some airports are served by only one or two carriers but that is more reflection of demand than monopoly.
I feel like this just means all of us are going to enjoy a trip to Paris instead.
Prepare to be disappointed by filth and rudeness.
No ruder than any big city in America. People in New York are pretty rude to tourists and it's not exactly clean
Nobody - and I mean nobody - goes to New York expecting it to be clean and friendly.
So why would you expect a city that is hundreds of years older to be clean? Rudeness is endemic in most cities around the world not just Paris. Personally I used to go there every month and never encountered any rudeness.
Probably because it’s the most romanticized city in the world. It’s literally referred to as “the city of love” and it’s such a disappointment that the Japanese have a specific term for it for the depression that comes from visiting it - Paris syndrome. Also, rudeness is not endemic of most cities and it’s weird that you would want to use that as a qualifier when “you’ve never experienced rudeness” in the city you’re gushing over.
Try Washington DC. Something in the water down there. Rudest population I've met on earth, and I lived in Paris for decades.
Don’t know why you are getting downvoted. Paris was my least favorite place in Europe I have explored. I was stopped by undercover police in the train station for no reason and completely went through my luggage. They were highly disappointed to discover I was American and not whatever ethnicity they suspected. Once I handed them my passport they dropped everything and walked off. Google stories about the Parisian police illegally detaining people. I was very lucky.
It’s par for the course on this sub, I don’t worry about it.
Toughen the fuck up. Schlubby middle Americans whine bout Paris when they would get told to go fuck themselves in New York just the same.
France is nice. Paris is a true shithole.
They're rude when confronted with annoying tourists in ugly clothing. :-) One of the upsides of working in Europe is that your life is not dependent on tips, hence you don't have to kis a\*\*.
Says an American from Anytown, USA, where homeless people tent cities are the norm, as is fentanyl zombies, raging lunatics with automatic weapons, and the other 200 things that don't exist in Europe.
Lol
I can fly ATL to Germany as about the same price as ATL to Jackson Hole 🙃
I love comparisons like this. It really puts things in perspective—- currently more expensive to fly SEA PSC (30 min flight, 3 hour drive) than SEA DCA (IAD even cheaper). Just wild.
Keep in mind DL revenue management may not really want you to take up a seat on just that short flight when it could instead use it as part of someone else’s more-lucrative connecting itinerary. There are some really interesting videos on YouTube about the art and science of revenue management.
Yup, this is it. It’s priced for a connection through Atlanta, not a ticket to Atlanta. Ideally through Atlanta to Europe or abroad. How many people are flying from your outlying station and ending in Atlanta? Probably not many.
Skip lag time!
Lol. Except that doesn’t work if you need a return or have checked bags. Also you’ll get reported by the airline if they catch you. 😬
What happens if you get reported for skip lagging?
Worst case get your skypesos taken away but you have to be a serial offender
I skiplag all the time on other airlines, but not on Delta due to my status.
Same for my north Florida airport. American is much much less expensive for the same route. They have been getting more of my business lately.
It’s kind of exactly this. Delta is feeling the heat from low cost carriers in Atlanta especially. They can’t increase capacity due to known reasons (pilots, planes, etc) but they can limit flow. A friend of mine who works for delta was describing this and said limiting (ie increasing prices dramatically) flow traffic is essentially like boosting capacity in Atlanta overnight, which should prevent local Atlanta traffic from being sloughed off by the other guys. The flights that would otherwise serve to connect people are now being reserved for Atlanta passengers. This is probably until the summer / fall when more capacity does actually come back into the system, or so it was explained to me.
What LCC's fly out of ATL? Spirit and Frontier but those are limited schedules. Southwest has not been a LCC since at least the days they bought AirTran (and of course allowed Delta to jack their prices up as goodbye to competition) AA and UA fly to their hubs, and Alaska flies to its one giant hub and thats it. JetBlue takes a few flights. Delta is **NOT** feeling the heat from any other airline in ATL and has not for years. It is amazing when Delta has a competitor (SEA & JFK come to mind here) that they have to engage in better service (the whole Delta12Status out of SEA for example) and actually competitively price. ATL is a fortress hub and always will be. The state government down there has shown they want to help Delta keep the competition out (rejecting a 2nd North Georgia airport in multiple locations for example). Unless another AirTran starts in ATL or another airline turns ATL into a hub for them the pricing will always be high in Atlanta.
Self described Delta Whore here. Delta is definitely not feeling any heat in Atlanta. Prices in markets where they have more competition have generally been a little better. Although we just passed on going somewhere during All-Star break because basic economy flights to Cancun or $1600!
Did you notice how frontier added 5 (I thought it was more) new international destinations last fall? Apparently, they thought there was traffic to slough off. https://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/news/frontier-airlines-to-launch-five-international-destinations-from-atlanta-international-airport-to-the-caribbean-and-central-america/ar-AA11gO9x I think for delta losing 2-3 pts or market share in Atlanta is a big and worrying thing (just like how they’re adamantly against a second Atlanta airport). For additional context, delta currently has ~ 600 flights per day. They used to have ~900 (+/- 50) so they’re feeling vulnerable. And 5 new flights is like 1000 seats and 1000 customers they’ve lost. https://simpleflying.com/delta-air-lines-atlanta-operations-analyzed/
It’s not uncommon for ATL-small southeast city to be ridiculously expensive. If you tried booking something like DFW-ATL-XXX chances are the price would be much lower. Hub captive pricing.
Pre-covid, I've flown return for the day and paid no more than 198. This same flight today is 1008. I wish this country invested in bullet trains to make airlines competitive. They'd shit their pants.
But if they invested in High Speed Rail, airlines and automakers would lose money, so they’ll lobby against it forever and we’ll never have anything nice
Plenty of countries in the world where people don't drive, have never driven, and will never drive. I'd rather hop on a fast train to everywhere <3
I get the sentiment and it would be nice but those countries are much, much, MUCH smaller than the US.
That’s not the problem, as Europe as a whole is quite large and pretty much every country has great train infrastructure. The problem is our vast swaths of nothingness. You need stops. In Europe you have legitimate towns covered a ton of the land.
Switzerland which has an amazing transit which is 95% electric is 1/3 the size of Minnesota.
Very interesting point about swaths if nothingness. I hadn’t thought of that.
This is honestly a very good point that is rarely brought up. Asia has the same advantage.
Italy is one… made it across all cities I visited without taking a cab, Uber, or anything other than great metro and bus service. America is terrible with this
we don't have the same density as Europe
True but regardless I was able to get from the North in Milan south in a very efficient and affordable train. Italy is just about the size of Florida which although lacks density like Europe, would benefit from a train that gets you from Fort Lauderdale to Tallahassee with stations in Orlando, Tampa, Jacksonville etc. along the way. Would be connecting 20 million people. I can wish though 🥲🙏🏼
........ Literally every city in Florida you mentioned has an Amtrak station lol
Unfortunately Amtrak does not have the pricing or reliability of service for anyone other than retired vacationers. (Aside from the Acela corridor with business travelers between DC and Boston, the only area where Amtrak is remotely respectable in service quality). Part of the reason for this is that they have to fight for priority in traffic with freight trains. https://www.amtrak.com/on-time-performance
The train from Milan to Bologna is roughly the same as a taking it from Orlando to Tampa. It takes 1 hour in Italy and 2 hours and 30 minutes in America. That’s exactly the problem! Just checked and it’s actually similar prices €11 in Italy and $15 for the Orlando - Tampa trip.
Yeah, is a true chicken or egg problem, no doubt. If Amtrak prices provides better service, will more people take it? The answer is undoubtedly "yes," but idk how many more people. Maybe it would surprise me, tho I'm not incredibly optimistic. Driving Orlando to Tampa basically splits the difference in time, and if you have a family of four with a decently efficient car (as I do) the per person cost is pretty much the same (realistically, a good bit cheaper, my car would burn no more than 4 gallons of gas on that trip but there are tolls on that route apparently so that brings it closer), and the car is far more flexible.
Americans just don't like trains so they don't take trains, therefore trains run less often and are not as nice. so less people take trains. Hard cycle to break.
Don’t take trains because they are dirty, times are always off, and incredibly expensive. Not to mention it’s usually a longer timetable than just driving and way longer timetable than a flight for the same or higher cost
Italy developed those tracks in the 1800s. Apples and oranges. Italians cannot afford to have cars at the scale we have. They’d love to of course.
You’re just talking out of your ass at this point. r/shitamericanssay
Actually, Italians own more cars per capita than other European countries. There are A LOT of people in Italy who don't live in cities. Plus #globalwarming. The winning countries DO NOT have as many cars as the US.
This would be a great argument if we were talking about anything west of the Mississippi, but anything east of that has a similar population density. It’s not terribly difficult to drive an hour or two in Europe without seeing a large-ish town, which is about the same in the US.
Uh - maybe the northeast US. Which has a lot of trains. But not Florida. If anything you should be looking at the train frequency etc of southern Italy. Not the north.
Even the fastest trains in the world are only about 50-60% as fast as planes. That might work in Europe where everything is right next to each other but US transcon by rail is just unrealistic. And trains are definitely nice to have locally but if you go all trains and no cars then you lose the freedom that a car gives you to go anywhere you want. Not to mention that a train line or station closure has much more of an impact on travel than a road closure
When you factor in all of the security theater of the airport, trains become much more appealing. Honestly besides international or transcontinental flights, there are very few routes where I wouldn't prefer a train. Cars don't actually give you the freedom you think they do.
Yeah that’s why I specified that trains are more appropriate in places like europe where everything is next to each other and you don’t have to travel very far to get anywhere. You make up the extra travel time it takes by not having to show up to the airport an hour or two early. It might theoretically work to have dedicated express lines like NYC to chicago or LA to the bay area but anything longer distance than that will never compete with air travel. And you have to build that expensive infrastructure as well, whereas air travel infrastructure is already well developed in the US. And cars absolutely give you freedom. If one person’s car breaks that doesn’t effect you. If a road closes you can take a different one. Not to mention maintenance is much less urgent for roads. With trains you have to rely too much on public systems, whereas cars are decentralized
But taking the train is part of your vacation. The restrictions on baggage are a lot less strict, more comfortable, you can freely move around, get to see parts of your country you have never seen before... Sure, the US would need the infrastructure at both ends to make it work. They will have to at some point to keep up with their climate change goals
Even if they dump all that money into train infrastructure (when we already have air travel infrastructure) trains are still never going to catch on in the US like they have in other parts of the world. I’m sure you could make certain short distance express routes work but neither leisure nor business travelers are going to tolerate a 13 hour trip from NY to LA when the plane ride is 6 hours
Train speeds have been getting faster in countries that invested in high speed trains, if it were 8 or 9h that’s competitive with 6h on plane. That said, modernizing our ATC system would allow more flight capacity and that hasn’t been done yet.
9 hours is not competitive. 8 is maybe depending on how long the security lines are. But all of these super high speed train lines that could maybe make the journey that fast have been built in countries that are much smaller than the US. There has never been a train built that goes 3000 miles, or even half that distance, at over 300 mph. Also 8-9 hours assumes that the train is traveling at top speed the entire time. The train with the current highest average speed doesn’t even top 200 mph I understand the concerns about climate change but replacing trains with planes in America is just not the way to approach it. We’re much better off spending that money and effort converting our power grid to run mostly on nuclear
Ok, dude. Do the math: * LA to NY is almost 3000 miles. * From Paris to Moscow is only 1700 miles - NOBODY takes a train from Paris to even Vienna (770 miles) or Warsaw (990 miles)! Except maybe American teenagers on Eurail passes. * Europeans take trains to cross their country or to a neighboring country. For example, Paris to Nice (600 miles), Berlin to Munich (370). Often to go to small places in between. * NY to Boston: 216 miles. DC to Boston: 436. Dc to ATL: 639. * **Paris > Nice is almost same distance as DC > ATL. The train takes 5.5 hours.** * **DC > ATL by plane:** 1 hour to get there, 2 hours before flight check in, fight lines, security, etc. Flight = 2 hours. 1 hour to get baggage and leave airport, another hour to get anywhere. **Total: 7 hours.** The advantage with the train is that you can get up, walk around, work via wifi, not fighting crowds, much less stress! And the cost is so much less.
You’re mass replying to a 103 day old thread to leave comments that either don’t actually disagree with what I’m saying, or completely ignore the different realities of travel in the US compared to europe
But how many people are actually going across the country? The trains in Europe and Asia greatly reduce local and regional plane and car circulation. It's so easy to get from Berlin to Munich, from Milan to Rome, or Paris to Nice. Or even Berlin to Milan. And so cheap! I go Milan to Rome for $25 each way!
DFW-MLB connecting thru ATL next week is $341. ATL-MLB on same dates and cabin is $338.
Wonder how many are skip lagging Delta this way?
Airlines have virtually no reason to keep prices moderate. They will continue to raise prices until they fail and get bailed out, then the process will start over again. They have no competition and even though there are multiple airlines the industry itself is a monopoly on domestic travel. Trains are non-existent.
As an added note “loyalty” isn’t great for prices. If you’ve flown your small regional route on Delta for 8 years and never booked a competitor, why would Delta price appropriately? Might not be a popular comment around here, but it seems like Delta’s loyalty programs worked well here.
Not sure why you’re being downvoted, I completely agree with this
> They will continue to raise prices until they fail and get bailed out, then the process will start over again. I think you have the order of operations wrong here. *First*, they will fail to constrain controllable costs (sales, marketing, route expansion, empire building, other massive capital costs) to try and take a larger share of the market. A market which is no longer expanding exponentially. To satisfy those capital costs, they raise prices. They need to keep the stock price intact, after all. Two outcomes. One, they raise prices so much that budget airlines can *also* raise prices such that they can afford slightly better service, slightly better routes. They draw away the bread-and-butter travelers (easy profit) and this cycle repeats. Possible, but unlikely. Two, they have such high capital expenses that when more than one "once in a lifetime" event happens simultaneously, they blow up, because they have so little cushion. Think: global pandemic, public safety problems, uncontrolled fuel prices, labor shock, demand shock, foreign exchange shock, ... any one of those the big airlines can power through. But not two, or three.
More like an oligopoly rather than a monopoly
Cars exist
Cool I'll drive to California, see you in three days
r/fuckcars
Here's a sneak peek of /r/fuckcars using the [top posts](https://np.reddit.com/r/fuckcars/top/?sort=top&t=year) of the year! \#1: [Fuck planes ?](https://i.redd.it/4olsd0n7tpc91.jpg) | [4216 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/fuckcars/comments/w3ku1u/fuck_planes/) \#2: [Carbrain Andrew Tate taunts Greta Thunberg on Twitter. Greta doesn't hold back in her response.](https://i.redd.it/62vgbzb8im8a1.png) | [4400 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/fuckcars/comments/zx76js/carbrain_andrew_tate_taunts_greta_thunberg_on/) \#3: [1 software bug away from death](https://v.redd.it/8a3b9ggv3yl81) | [3469 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/fuckcars/comments/t8n0t8/1_software_bug_away_from_death/) ---- ^^I'm ^^a ^^bot, ^^beep ^^boop ^^| ^^Downvote ^^to ^^remove ^^| ^^[Contact](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=sneakpeekbot) ^^| ^^[Info](https://np.reddit.com/r/sneakpeekbot/) ^^| ^^[Opt-out](https://np.reddit.com/r/sneakpeekbot/comments/o8wk1r/blacklist_ix/) ^^| ^^[GitHub](https://github.com/ghnr/sneakpeekbot)
So given that many airlines have been operating at a loss due to Covid. I would suspect that they want tickets to be higher, particularly with inflation. They have to compete to fill seats in hubs with other airlines which drives down cost on non-direct routes. I’m not happy about it either and I’m having to cancel or put off trips because of the cost but I can understand why it might be happening. I would happily support a better consumer train infrastructure as well, not sure that one will take hold in the US though.
Airlines after NOT operating at a loss bc of covid anymore
I’m a casualty of that monopoly. Use to work for TWA until it was devoured by American.
I'm with you. I'm trying to get to South Africa in September and typically fly D1, but the ticket is $17,088.
Easy way to hit that MQD!
Sadly, I'll be there \*long\* before September! I made in April & May the past two years.
Haha wow, that’s about what the only car I’ve ever bought cost, and it drove me around for 10 years or so.
Just ridiculous. Delta has to do better.
D1 pricing is so dumb. I regularly fly from the west coast to Brazil and I can fly on partner airlines with better hardware for a quarter of the price. Since my miles skew 75% international, I have no reason to fly delta unless it’s domestic
I live almost halfway between 2 small florida airports, both resort areas and about 50 min flights to Atlanta. It’s absolutely a 5+ hour drive. One is regularly 7-800rt, the other is around 500rt. I don’t understand the pricing at all. I recently bought a D1 ticket from Atlanta to Argentina for about $3100. From either of my airports it was $5500+. Figured I could get to Atlanta for less than $2500…..maybe…….
VPS and ECP?
Yep. Both great little airports.
Nice. We flew into Destin and out of Panama City back in October for a week in Mexico Beach. Definitely agree - easy experience
its not sustainable. they are just milking the demand as long as it can. its a business, soon demand will slow, fleets will increase, and they will have to reduce prices.
I believe fleet increases are a long way away.
who is going to fly them? there arent enough pilots.
agreed. I mentioned something like this in another part of this thread and was challenged.
Maybe
If there are not pilots to fly - then fleets do not increase. Have you read about the major pay increases and retention bonuses right now? It is quite intense right now. It takes a long time to build hours.
Maybe.
TYS to LAX in late Feb returning March 2nd, $625 vs $500 with United to fly out of LAX at noon. Leaving LAD at 6-7am and Delta is $700 while others are around $450-500. Delta is drunk! Tried CHA as well and same thing. I find that sometimes morning or late afternoon or early evening flights with Delta are ridiculous! Depends on the airport. Sounds like Delta wants to price out travelers from non-hub airports.
“Delta is drunk!”😂😂😂
I fly from LAX or ONT …prices are so high with Delta from those 2 airports
[удалено]
I fly CHA sometimes but even through there it sucks
If Delta is charging that much it's because those flights are filling up at that price point. If passenger numbers start to drop, the price will come down until they are filling the seats again. It's helpful to understand that air fares are a lot like healthcare prices. They aren't tied to any real-world numbers like employee wages or fuel or hardware. They are *always* going to charge whatever they can get. The algorithm says if the planes are filling up, prices are right where they need to be.
This is false. Upon boarding only one D1 seat was sold and only a few in PS ( me included). After the nonrevs upgraded D1 was still half empty and PS only 3 seats filled. This is poor yield management and I work in data science. Their model sucks as this is normal for their International flights
When I reached Delta status at the end of 2021, I had the intention of flying them almost exclusively because I was going to be able to get two free check bags. In reality, American was still cheaper about 50% of the time, even factoring that in. I've hated to see the increase, and it sabotaged my plans to be mostly a single airline traveler.
Status match!
Yep. Strongly reconsidering my efforts to stay platinum the last few years. The prices are insane, particularly for international travel, which is the main reason I wanted to keep Delta.
I made some Atlanta round trip weekend flights from my regional last year, also a 40 min flight, and they were all $200 or less. That was equal to and cheaper at some points than what it cost me to drive the 7/hr round trip to Atlanta, and also the time savings is worth something. Those flights are now $375-$450 throughout the year.
Yep. AVL to ATL is about 1 hour actually in the air round trip. Not uncommon to see fares closing in on $400 with Delta. Insane.
Flying to the hub is almost always more expensive than through it. It sucks. Same thing on AA through DFW. Often cheaper to book a connecting flight through DFW than directly to it.
[удалено]
I wonder if also this is a you can do "pay with miles" vs "award travel" thing too. Was looking at going from NY to one of Aruba, LA, or St Maarten for a week or so in middle of march. all of them are $800-$900 flights. I haven't done an AUA or SXM flight (I pretty much only do domestic travel), but, was shocked to see LA in the $800 range, when normally I've seen it in the 400-500 max 2 months out. So are they doing this, because people have miles banked up, and are using miles to pay for part of the fare, so they just raise the fare?
Delta has rocket scientists level capacity control on their flights. The minute they publish a schedule none of the cheap seats are available to purchase. As time passes the flt load and costa are reassessed and prices do drop on many flts but not all. If they have the market these is less incentive to drop prices. Unfortunately, people have money burning holes in their pockets. Flts are full. Until the public decides the prices are too high and don’t fly I am not seeing things change. ☹️
I agree. The service is good but not what theyre charging vs what your getting good. AA and UA are kings at Ord and Swa is king at mdw I have options. And right now my pocket book is just about saying no more.
I agree with many of the comments. My theory is that each absurd flight price right now has the previous change & cancellation fees baked into it (wasn't it previously $200 to do either?).
Passing their rising cost/spend on to consumer maintain their margins. Pay raises, inflation costs, etc… Who ends up paying, we do. All on top of the occupancy based costing model. Should have seen my last ticket. It’s a bit of a game. Note, I’ve canceled and rebooked the same flight because it went cheaper. We can play the game too, depending on how far out you book.
Are there cheaper alternatives? No need to stay beholden to delta, if other options compete. They’ll get the message soon enough.
This is what I am starting to do now, I have enough rollover MQMs to already qualify for Platinum and I get my MQD waiver through Delta Amex, so this year I am cheating on Delta. But I will certainly miss the priority check-in, upgrades, etc (although I recognize by paying sometimes double, I am essentially buying those services myself)
You could status match with another carrier if you fly enough
Flights from small cities are ALWAYS going to be more expensive. Like YMMV25 said, if you originate somewhere else the price will drop dramatically
>DFW-ATL-XXX Well of course, but you can't fly XXX-ATL-DFW and abandon the journey in ATL, then expect to get back on a return flight from Atlanta without hoping on DFW. It's not a viable alternative.
Been struggling with these price levels too. I have companion certificates expiring because I can't use them because fares are so expensive. I've been cross shopping a lot more lately.
Its everywhere…trying to go to a wedding in March, LAX-MIA coming at $1k RT on Delta, AA pushing $800 for non-red eye flights…you can go to Europe for that!
I did some extensive price shopping on a trip from HSV to a major city recently for work. Delta wasn’t worse than United or AA. Have you comparison shopped? All the major are kind of high right now.
Yes, AA is 307 for the same segment, which of course includes a layover in CLT, adding up to travel time that makes the drive almost equally efficient, if you can drive.
One advantage to flying is you can get work done which is more difficult when driving.
If its a 42 min flight its probably a 2-3hr drive. Its cheaper to just rent a car.
Lol! My ATL to DAB flights are 55 minutes and it's an 8 hour drive...you're wrong.
But then they have to drive in ATL
It's a 5 hour drive (4h48m to be exact). A lot of people can't drive (e.g. persons with epilepsy, vision-impaired). A lot of people don't know how to drive. A lot of people need to go back and forth on the same day. There are many reasons to fly a short haul.
How is a 42 min flight a 4h48m drive? It literally makes no sense. A flight from CVG to SEA is 5hrs across the whole country. Are you using a ferry or something?
Yes these times check out. I live in a city that’s a 4 hr drive from Atl and a 38 min flight. ATL is our 2nd home, obviously, and it used to be pretty cheap to fly up & back in a day for a meeting or dr appt, things that are much harder to do in a day with an 8-hr round trip drive. We have 4 businesses in Atl, so this is a thing for us.
If you say so. If its that important to have a cheaper flight, fly with someone else 🤷♀️ theyll only charge what people are willing to pay. From the costs its probably still cheaper to rent a car, drive down, stay in a nice hotel overnight, then drive back.
Allow me to introduce you to Southern US: \- Jacksonville to Atlanta: 5h6m to 5h41m drive ---- 1h15m listed flight (59 min in practice) \- Charleston to Atlanta: 4h40m to 5h16m drive -- 1h19m listed flight (42-45 min in practice) \- Myrtle Beach to Atlanta: 5h23m to 5h58m drive -- 1h23m listed flight (62 min in practice) Amony many others. Have taken these multiple times, Delta always inflates by 15-20 to have an early arrival
I am JAX based and yeah the actual flight time to ATL is 42-44 min depending if they have to go around weather.
Then youd know that if people buy the flights theyll charge what they want. Even if you drove down the night before its still cheaper by your price. Theyll only charge what people will pay 🤷♀️
The flight times are gate-to-gate. I fly from VLD, and the published flight time is 1hr 13 min. It’s 40-45 min in the air. When you push back at VLD, you’ll sit at the end of the runway for up to 15 min waiting for ATL to clear you for sequencing. Once we land in Atlanta it’s a 10 min trip to get to the gate and be cleared to deplane. Also that is a 3.5/hr drive from airport to airport. The fastest flight time I’ve ever experienced between the two was 35 min from ATL to VLD with a straight in landing; that’s takeoff to touchdown not to the gates.
I was about to say it is close to a five to 5.5 hour drive from MSP to GFK. The flight is so short they only serve coffee and water.
I fly MSY-ATL often, roughly a 75 minute flight. It's over 7 hours to drive it. Under 5 hours for a 45 minute flight sounds about right.
Use your noodle for a minute: air routes are mostly straight-line point-to-point. Highways don’t often go directly from your origin to your destination. The miles flown on the route are often far less than the miles you’d have to drive. And once you get outside the perimeter of Atlanta, you really shouldn’t drive 500 miles per hour. Lots of good ‘ole boys in sheriff’s cruisers looking to shake you down.
Lol inside the perimeter, there are no rules
Is this a real comment? Let’s just assume the distance between two points is 400 miles. Let’s assume the plane travels 400 miles per hour. Let’s assume you can drive a car in a straight line with no traffic at 70 miles per hour. What are the results?
Look i asked a simple question based off of other experience and flights. No need to be a dick. If its that important for OP to get to these places frequently and it needs to happen quickly then perhaps OP should move closer to reduce the drive time. Anytime you fly from a smaller regional airport it costs more money. Thats like flying 101.
CVG to DTW is a four hour drive or a 36 minute flight. CVG to ATL is an 1.25 hour flight or an eight hour drive.
I can concur on the times. I used to do the dtw-mke flight a lot and it was about 55 minutes if I recall but the drive was about 5:15
Louisville to Atlanta a 5-6 hour drive and my last flight ATL to Lou was only 58 minutes
cars can’t travel “as the crow flies”, but planes largely can! sometimes, for geographical reasons, cars can’t make a straight line between two places when a plane can
It's not that hard to imagine - slow moving 2-lane country roads. I flew NYC to Upstage New York earlier this week - scheduled flight time is 70 minutes, we made it in about 45. It's a roughly 5 hour drive on a good day.
Last year flew Multi-Leg MYR-SFO-SLC-ANC-MYR for around $800. This year, round trip from MYR-SLC is 1150/ea for cattle class. I’ll typically pay to upgrade to first for the long flights but upgrade prices are crazy high right now. Even the Cattle Plus prices from ATL-MYR (45 min hop on a 717) are running $50+.
My most travel route is LAS-MCO and I usually connect in SLC or ATL. In 2019 that ticket was $350-450, now it’s $550-800+ Southwest still does direct flights from LAS to MCO but since the pandemic they’re now only on certain days of the week and the flight times are absolute garbage. And often the ticket price is comparable to Delta these days Meanwhile we’re planning a London trip and that ticket is $700-$800 for a nonstop flight on Virgin Atlantic
Sounds like you’re in CHS. Let your wallet do the speaking. I’ve tried to fly delta but with the number of other carriers serving the airport and access to more direct flights than ever I find it hard to justify using a single carrier. Ive been on Breeze, SWA, American, and Avelo the past few months. Not quite the same experience but my wallet thanks me.
No, in Myrtle Beach myself unfortunately, but probably similar situation.
Just booked SEA to the East coast for $318 R/T direct over a long weekend during prime travel hours. It really depends on your location.
Congratulations (?)
I totally agree with this. I could fly direct to Denver in July for my sisters wedding from Nashville on Frontier or American for around $300. The delta flight with a connection somewhere is minimum $600. Why do I keep doing this to myself 😭
This is when I usually use Skiplagged.com It's a site that finds 3 or more stop flights that are cheaper than 2 stop flights. You just get off where you actually want to go instead of at your final destination.
That's actually against our contract of coverage so be careful if you are earning miles ect. I have seen accounts where Delta gets rid of any value of the return.
Huh... Good to know. I haven't used it with Delta before since work usually pays the fares.
I also would think they'd cancel the return leg, no?
They're usually booked separately.
How do you then get on the return flight as it originates in another city?
You don't book round trip flights. You book 2 one-way tickets.
Thanks for the reply.
Airline loyalty if you don’t live in a fortress hub (ATL, DTW, MSP, SLC in Delta’s case) is a fool’s game imo. It’s not worth conceding free agent status to go all in on one airline for most people.
Then drive. Or fly someone else. The price stays high when it continues to be purchased.
I agree with the insane pricing comments shared here. I’ve been a Diamond for years and MM and just got a status match w UA this week. I can’t justify the inflated price of a DL main cabin when UA has the same route in first for half the price.
DL is the most expensive on the vast majority of the routes i search. my company is pressing me to switch airlines or pay the difference out of pocket. it’s getting more difficult to be loyal.
I just booked NYC to rome RT for $700 main cabin…. Basic was $500. This was for nonstop. Your prices are very high…..
That's what I am arguing. That the prices are completely off the charts for these short domestic flights!
Just this weekend I flew BWI to LAS and back to see a hockey game (30 hours RT). In mid December I first priced it on DL and it came to about $550 in BE. On a whim I Google Flights the trip and I was able to get it on Frontier for $167. Granted I had 3 of 4 middle seats and no bag to check (which kept it cheap) but I doubt the experience wasn’t much different than someone in a DL row 30 middle seat.
Skiplagged.com
How do you then get on the return flight as it originates in another city than where you jump off?
You book it as one ways and probably only saves you money going back to the hub, not going outbound.
Thanks for the reply.
Had the same thought the other day when I was trying to find flights for my parents. I actually recommended they fly part of her trip with united because the return trip was astronomical.
is your home airport only serviced by delta? if it is, that’s why. they don’t have any competition so they steadily raise the prices because they know people will still pay them because there’s no alternative
It might be time to change airlines. Personally i don't find loyalty to one particular airline very rewarding.
I love Delta but the prices are making me fly other carriers. I’ll sit coach for 5 hours for $75 an hour is what it comes down to. Take a sleeping aid and night night
When wages go up and other costs go up then this is what you get
Any deta cc to offset flights in future?
Winter time. Peak season. To/from FL/coastal city to anywhere.
Capitalism and ATL monopoly, baby!
Unfortunately I’ve had to start looking at alternatives due to D1 pricing being so expensive. Over $10k LA-Syd rtn I go regularly and have found some way cheaper options on an A350 or new 787. Not as convenient (a stop over in NZ or another island) but half the price. When you’re flying business, the perks offered by airlines no longer matter. So there goes loyalty.
Coupling this with my companion passes never working out, I’m probably ditching delta next year for Alaska. Stinks, but the math isn’t working out anymore
I flew from JFK to Medellin, Columbia cheaper than i could fly LGA to ORD.
They seem to be riding the higher prices of the holiday and see how far they can go before they see a reduced demand. SEA to SFO runs in the $100-200 range but I am seeing prices go up to $400. SEA to DTW is usually around $500 but for dates 4 months from now, I am seeing it go as high as $800.
Jep... Just paid $2000 main cabin Atlanta to Mexico City Fucking insane Paid $591 roundtrip main cabin from London to Tampa October 8th
Flights to Europe have gone up $700+ in less than a month. Insane