Hub premiums cost Delta fliers big-time at Metro Airport (and other hubs)

[Bozita]

Source: Detroit Free Press

Hub premiums cost Delta fliers big-time at Metro Airport
1:36 AM, Sep. 25, 2011
BY JENNIFER DIXON AND ELLEN CREAGER
DETROIT FREE PRESS STAFF WRITERS


Try to figure this out.

Delta Air Lines charges a business traveler flying from Detroit to Tokyo more than $11,000.

But if that same passenger began his trip in Flint, and flew through Detroit, that fare would drop by more than $6,000, to just more than $5,000.

Experts call it a hub premium. A Free Press review of published fares shows Delta is charging travelers headed to Europe and Asia hundreds or thousands of dollars more to fly out of Detroit, rather than out of Flint, Lansing, Saginaw or even tiny Pellston.

Passengers flying out of two other Delta hubs -- Atlanta and Minneapolis -- also tend to pay a similar premium, the review found.

Read more: http://www.freep.com/article/20110925/NEWS05/109250467/Hub-premiums-cost-Delta-fliers-big-time-Metro-Airport?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|FRONTPAGE

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This is insane.

[msongs]

1. when the news gets out they will have to stop. even $5000 to anywhere is a scam nt

[tropicanarose]

7. Exactly. If I paid 5,000K I would except to be on a private jet with my own private masseuse & chef

I have never heard of airfares so high!

[SharonAnn]

8. Cincinnati, dominated by Delta for decades, is the same. I used to fly from

Dayton, OH and connect in Cincinnati with my co-workers for business trips. My fare was usually half of theirs, even though I had an extra leg on the flight, Dayton to Cincinnati (30 minute flight).

[Initech]

2. It's not insane if you know how to work the system.

Airlines are like car dealers - you can score a better deal if you know where to look, aren't afraid to bargain, and configure it directly from the source to get the inside deal. Also, buying a plane ticket is like buying a car if you do so on YOUR terms, not on theirs.

[MADem]

3. Makes no damn sense! nt

[DFW]

4. European airlines have the same tricks.

It costs me thousands less to fly Air France from Germany to the USA if I change in Paris than if I fly
on Lufthansa, either nonstop from Düsseldorf or through Frankfurt. Lufthansa does the same thing with
fares from France to the USA if you fly Lufthansa and change in Frankfurt.

[cosmicone]

5. It's a bizarro world

If I fly Business Class from San Francisco to London on British Airways, round trip, it is $9000

If I fly to Mumbai via Londoa on British Airways, round trip, it is $5500

So I can get twice the distance at half the price flying essentially the same flights.

[mwooldri]

6. To the general lay person, airplane fares make no sense.

Shopping for airfares a couple of years back. Best deal from flying from GSO to London - had to connect in Dallas, TX. Wanted anything more direct, just pay $100 more. Mind you these are coach fares.