Why is oneway so much more expensive?

[lipoppop]

After our NY to Barcelona on the Princindam in May we intend to spend a fw days there. Looking at the air fares from Barcelona to New York I find that oneway is usually much more expensive than a round trip!! Sometimes more than double. Also if the flight originates in Europe on the round trip it is more expensive than if it orriginated in the US.

 

The only inexpensive oneway I found was on aerlingus for about $400.

 

Expedia is the only site that I found that would even quote a oneway starting out of the US. ITA was a good starting point for all the fares.

 

The recent price war is only for flights before March 31 and then primarily domestic.

 

Any ideas?

 

:cool:

[jhannah]

I would also like to know why. It never has made any sense to me. The cost should be the same either direction. I've never had anyone explain to me why the airlines price this way.

[CaptData]

It is usually assumed that if you are going one way, you are not coming back ergo, you wll no longer use them. Why not take your money now. It is the same for buses and trains. There is also the logistics of it. It costs to fly the crew there and back but you only went one way. Yes, I know others will be returning but not you, you used up one space which may not be filled on the way back.

[Quo Vadis?]

It is the same for buses and trains. There is also the logistics of it..

 

One way fare is not double a return fare though...

 

Look at doing two crossings.. Have the flight originate in Europe but return in the fall . Its what I'm planning right now....

 

Cruise to Amsterdam in May, cruise out of Barcelona in October.

[obriendan]

I think that the most likely explanation is that the airlines want to force you to book a round trip fare! On the otherhand, there is no way to really explain airline fares.

[Globaliser]

I think that the most likely explanation is that the airlines want to force you to book a round trip fare! On the otherhand, there is no way to really explain airline fares.

With a very expensive one-way fare, you'll usually find that it has no restrictions attached to it. Those fares are, usually, half the price of a similarly unrestricted round-trip fare.

 

The real reason that the one-way fares appear to be so more expensive than round-trip fares is that you are not comparing like with like. You're usually comparing that totally flexible, refundable, endorsable (to other airlines) one-way ticket with a cheapie non-refundable and totally inflexible round-trip ticket. Those one-way tickets come up in searches because many airlines don't sell any one-way tickets other than those most expensive fully flexible tickets.

 

This is just one facet of a very difficult job the airlines have to do to try to keep the maximum amount of revenue coming in. They may have 100 seats to sell on an aircraft, but they're selling to a mixture of people. Some people are able to book for specific flights and dates 9 or 12 months in advance, but cannot afford to pay more than a minimum amount. The other extreme of their clientele is the last-minute (usually business) passenger who needs to get to their destination, and it doesn't matter what it costs. (Typically, these are also the passengers who need to buy one-way tickets at the last minute.)

 

Of course, that second passenger would prefer to pay the lower amount, too - but it would be financially ruinous for the airline to sell all the seats for an amount which doesn't even cover the average cost per seat of operating the flight. So all sorts of ways have been devised to make the second passenger pay as much as he is actually prepared to pay, not just the smaller amount that he'd prefer to pay if he could get away with it. Those ways include different amounts of flexibility on tickets - hence the differences between the flexible one-ways and the restricted round-trip tickets.

 

One of the key features of the new breed of low fare airline is that all tickets are sold on a one-way basis. But this is not a sure fire strategy - you only have to look at the long list of low fare airlines that have gone bust, only doing so more quietly than the big airlines who are in deep trouble.