On Mar 16, 3:35 pm, Hatunen wrote:
> On Fri, 16 Mar 2007 09:14:39 +0100, "trallala"
> wrote:
> >If not, would it not be more flexible to book only one way flights ?
>
> Unfortunately, and paradoxically, that would probably be a lot
> more expensive than a return flight.
>From the point of view of the airlines, it's not paradoxical. Regular
airlines often discount round trip flights, but virtually never
discount one-way flights. The reason for this is that they have a lot
of restrictions on cheap fares that are intended to ensure that they
are used primarily by leisure travelers (many of whom would just not
take the flight if the cost was much higher, who can often book well
in advance, and who are usually somewhat flexible on dates and times),
and not by business travelers, who are generally willing to pay much
higher prices - so airlines require advance purchase, saturday night
stopovers, midweek departures, etc. for the cheapest fares. Allowing
cheap one-ways would let business travelers get around all of the
restrictions rather than paying loads of money for last-minute tickets
at specific times.
The low-cost airlines are helping to break down that pricing model
when it comes to flights within Europe or within the US, but it still
applies to a large extent to intercontinental flights.
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