How can the same flight cost less one leg earlier?

score:5

Accepted answer

If KLM wants passengers to fly with them from Dusseldorf to Boston, they have to compete with other carriers flying the same route. In this particular situation, they are obviosuly trying to underbid the German no-frills airline 'airberlin' operating on the same route, even with some direct flights, starting their round-trip tickets at around 550€.

If you can get a roundtrip with direct flights from airberlin for 550€, KLM will have to go lower with their offer to attract potential customers to compensate for the longer travel time and the inconvenience of a transfer in Amsterdam.

Upvote:-2

There is no excuse for it, bad for environment as people land and take of more often and quite often also travel more land miles to make use of a cheaper airport.

But Airlines do it as they can get away from it.

I have heard it explain as there is a big difference in costs the airlines pay for a transfer passenger compared to a long distance passenger leaving from or arriving at the airport. While short distance flights are on the lower cost scale.

One time several European friends all flew to Boston, USA, and all had comparable lenght (and days) of stay. The final ticket prices were about the same, within €50 from each other, bought around the same time.

  • One flew Bristol (BRS), Amsterdam (AMS), Boston (BOS).
  • One flew Amsterdam (AMS), Paris (CDG), Boston (BOS).
  • One flew Amsterdam (AMS), Rome (FCO), Boston (BOS).

At that time the flight Amsterdam - Boston was about €300 more expensive. As was London (HTR) Boston, if not more expensive.

I personally feel that the system of dropping the price when adding a leg should be stopped, but till a big country or a series of countries, or more likely both at the same time, make laws against it airlines will continue. So your best option is to search well.

By the way, in Paris one flight was delayed so arriving in Boston 3 hours late. On the way back the incoming flight was late in Paris so running and rushed few minutes.
And in Rome luggage got 'lost', to be delivered 4 days late in our destination town a few hours drive away.
So it is worth considering to pay more for a direct flight.

Upvote:3

How competitive is the sector?

You are booking a code-share flight with Delta, so you'll actually be flying on Delta (it says "operated by Delta"), and since Delta is a US based airline flying out of Amsterdam, they may have different costs for that segment.

A quick search finds that there are only two daily non-stop flights from AMS to BOS, and they are both on Delta.

As there is very little competition, and this is a very busy sector the airline can charge a premium as most passengers prefer direct flights.

Keep in mind that airlines have to bid for landing slots so if there are multiple flights to the same destination by an airline, its a very profitable sector and airlines are charging accordingly. Landing slots are not cheap (and landing and services fees can also run a premium for airlines).

Compare this to DUS - BOS, where Air Berlin has 4 flights a week (direct); but KLM (and by extension, Delta) only has connections through AMS.

This may explain the price variance, since they are competing in DUS, they are offering lower fares - plus the flight isn't direct so to make up for that, they have reduced the fares.

You won't see much difference if you were to book the flight from Delta directly; the AMS-BOS flight, booked on Delta costs 1211.86 EUR and the DUS-BOS flight, booked on Delta costs 716.16 EUR.

This is a good reminder that you should always check for other nearby airports when booking flights - a slight commute may end up saving you a considerable amount.

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