Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - I'll Never Understand the Airline Industry

I bought tickets a few days ago for the trip that the boys and I are taking to see my parents. I hunted through a number of the more popular online sites until I found a nice cheap fare to my liking.

Weird thing #1: we are flying Buffalo to Charlotte, NC to Fayetteville, NC, changing planes in Charlotte. Taking the extra flight to Fayetteville is cheaper than just flying to Charlotte on the same flight. WTF? I don't get it.

Weird thing #2: Mind you, I should have just taken the flight to Charlotte after all - by flying to Fayetteville (about 50 minutes) I'm actually only getting about 25 miles closer to where my parents live in SC.

Weird thing #3: When I booked the flight on Travelocity, they gave me lots of options for getting to my destination (some 7-8 options) at their best price. But if I wanted to get back home at that price, there were only two choices for the flight home - one at 5:50 AM, and one at 7:00 PM. It put me in the position of having to choose between getting up at 2 AM so we could get to the airport on time or arriving after 11 PM in Buffalo (waaay past the boys' bedtime). No surprise, I chose the latter. Heaven help me if I'm delayed or canceled on the way home.

Weird thing #4: On a whim I searched for fares to Florida from Buffalo on USAir's website. If you want to go round-trip to Orlando, it's $99 right now (woo hoo get me out of here! oh, yeah right, darn it all). But if you want to go to Miami round-trip, it's $647.

If anyone could explain how the airline industry does its pricing please, please help me! I don't understand! I'm a smart person, so why is it so difficult? [sob]