The Idiocity of Air Travel Today
Blog: VEGAS HAPPENS HERE - 11 April 2009
By: THE STRIP PODCAST
I was in Minneapolis briefly for something personal earlier this week and then used a free ticket to pop down to Atlanta to surprise Miles, who was visiting his parents for the week. To make this work, I had to buy myself a one-way ticket from Atlanta to Las Vegas for Sunday.
When I was working on this last weekend, one-way airfares from ATL-LAS were quite high, none less than $400. But I stumbled across some other one-way fares from the Southeastern U.S. that weren't so bad. To wit, it was $133 to fly from Jacksonville, Fla., to Las Vegas, stopping in Atlanta.
I called up Delta. Could I buy the $133 ticket and just use the second half? No. How, pray tell, could it be that it costs $450 to fly ATL-LAS but $133 to fly JAX-ATL-LAS, putting me on the same aircraft for the second leg. In what universe is it a third as expensive for an airline to transport a passenger on two planes?
The Delta rep's response: "There is no way to explain our fares."
You're tellin' me, sister. So on Sunday, I fly from Atlanta to Charlotte to Jacksonville on US Air for $120 and then from JAX-ATL-LAS for $133. I'm saving $200 and gathering a bunch more frequent flier miles. And proving that our air travel system is stupid.
Oddly, Miles gets to take me to the airport in Atlanta for a 7 a.m. ET flight, fly his direct ATL-LAS flight in the afternoon, and pick me up at McCarran at 7 p.m. PT. That's assuming all four of my flights lift off and land as expected. Needless to say, I built in a LOT of time for error.
Any good reading suggestion?
When I was working on this last weekend, one-way airfares from ATL-LAS were quite high, none less than $400. But I stumbled across some other one-way fares from the Southeastern U.S. that weren't so bad. To wit, it was $133 to fly from Jacksonville, Fla., to Las Vegas, stopping in Atlanta.
I called up Delta. Could I buy the $133 ticket and just use the second half? No. How, pray tell, could it be that it costs $450 to fly ATL-LAS but $133 to fly JAX-ATL-LAS, putting me on the same aircraft for the second leg. In what universe is it a third as expensive for an airline to transport a passenger on two planes?
The Delta rep's response: "There is no way to explain our fares."
You're tellin' me, sister. So on Sunday, I fly from Atlanta to Charlotte to Jacksonville on US Air for $120 and then from JAX-ATL-LAS for $133. I'm saving $200 and gathering a bunch more frequent flier miles. And proving that our air travel system is stupid.
Oddly, Miles gets to take me to the airport in Atlanta for a 7 a.m. ET flight, fly his direct ATL-LAS flight in the afternoon, and pick me up at McCarran at 7 p.m. PT. That's assuming all four of my flights lift off and land as expected. Needless to say, I built in a LOT of time for error.
Any good reading suggestion?
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