Air Fares Are Confusing and Often Unfair

You’ve just made reservations to fly to Boston next month and now you inquire about the price.

“If you’re willing to buy the ticket 30 days in advance, round trip is $258,” says the agent. Of course, he adds, you have to stay over a Sunday and come back within 21 days.

You’re returning to college so that won’t work. “I just need a one-way ticket,” you say.

“That’s $479,” says the agent, “unless you fly at night. Then it’s $359.”

The conversation is hypothetical, but there’s nothing hypothetical about those prices. Strange as it sounds, the cheapest way to fly to Boston one-way is to buy a round-trip discount ticket and throw away the return half.

If that’s confusing, consider the experience of one Los Angeles advertising executive. He decided to make a short business trip to Dallas, and his secretary reported round-trip coach would be $666. To him, that sounded more like a fare to New York, or even London. So he called American himself. Turned out if he were willing to leave Saturday instead of Sunday, he would pay just $198.

“Well, I figured, there goes the weekend,” he says. But he called around and found that Continental would forget the Saturday nonsense and take him on Sunday for $225, but he’d have to fly through Houston, or for $198 if he’d go through Denver. So he tried Braniff and finally found a non-stop flight for $250, good anytime.

What’s going on here?

Travel Agents Confused

The airlines contend that it all makes sense. Some travel agents say it doesn’t and that they’re almost as confused as the passengers.

Blame it all on deregulation of the airline industry if you want, but the carriers will say the word isn’t blame. You should be happy about the nice low fares--assuming you pick the right time to fly. The question, however, is whether the pricing free-for-all is getting out of hand, benefiting some travelers handsomely while punishing others unnecessarily.

For the most part, heightened competition has been a good thing for airline customers. Overall, fares have risen far less than inflation since deregulation in 1979. In fact, fares peaked in 1981 and have been slightly lower ever since.

The greater freedom to enter the market has spawned new carriers hoping to combine rock-bottom fares and high volume into some kind of profit. That has confronted the major carriers with a dilemma--whether to beat back the upstarts with low fares, a difficult task when the big organizations have higher costs, or maintain the fare structure, giving up a chunk of some markets. At present, they’re attempting to do both, helping to explain why things are so messy.

Many of the special discounts offered by the mainline carriers are designed to capture some of those people most sensitive to price and most likely to jump to the cheaper lines or to take a trip when they otherwise wouldn’t. Hence, the rules make it easier for those who budget well ahead than for those who are more likely to pick up and go. Certainly the rules about staying over a weekend are there to keep the business traveler from getting a deep discount.

Number Is Distorted

One airline calculates that 70% of its passengers fly discount, but the number is badly distorted by the flights it has on a commuter run where almost no one is charged full fare. Coast to coast, the share is less than half. The lines also generally don’t advertise how many seats they discount. On some runs it’s a lot, on others just a handful.

Periodically, there’s been some effort to simplify the structure, including a recently announced plan initiated by United to make fares relate more closely to miles flown. (Right now with discounts it costs as much to fly to Cleveland as it does to New York.) But competition generally has overwhelmed such moves.

There’s no simple answer. It’s cheaper for an airline to keep its seats filled at almost any price rather than fly partly empty. It’s also logical to shift some customers to off-peak parts of the week. But customers, including a good many cost-conscious companies with heavy travel bills, can’t be altogether happy with the situation as it stands. And woe to the casual traveler who doesn’t plan ahead.