Why is the airfare so expensive????

[MomPOM]

I bought our tickets at the same exact time last year. We flew American and I think they may have been the same times that I'm looking at now. Last year I paid $180 per ticket. The same flight now is $300+. Seriously???

I live right next to O'Hare which you would think would get me cheaper airfares since it's a central hub for a lot of stuff. Nope. Can't do Southwest because they don't fly out of O'Hare.

I'll wait a couple more weeks to see if they come down but it looks like I'll be spending almost a grand on airfare. Bah!

 

[hildarumpole]

If you're willing to fly out of Midway, Airtran offers some lower airfares. We've been very happy with Airtran's service.

 

[DisneyAndRedSox]

Airlines have cut back on # of flights and can get away with it. I remember in the late 90's Delta had 3 evening flights to MCO. Now they have about 3 a day!

 

[dis75ney]

Fly out of Midway if at all possible. I live about an hour north of O'Hare and will almost always choose Midway (or Milwaukee) for my flights to WDW. Smaller, not at crazy busy, security lines are shorter, Midway has a Superdawg ...but I digress...

We flew to WDW in June and chose an early AM Southwest flight out of Midway. Even with the gas costs for an extra hour's drive and a hotel room for the previous night (which included parking for seven days), we still came out with about $300 savings over anything I could find flying out of O'Hare. Plus, I liked being able to choose my seats on SW rather than all three of us being split up like we were with American...

 

[peekinglemer]

We are actually driving 3 hours out of our way (our local airport is 15 minutes away) to catch a flight on Jet Blue. We were able to get a direct flight from Rochester, NY to MCO for $62.00 up and $89.00 return flight. Flying US Air from our home airport was more then twice that much and they were connecting flights. So...maybe try some other airports and you can find a better deal.

Sending Pixi dust for a great deal!

 

[*pixie*dust*]

Since Dec 25th all flights have gone up. That incident in Detroit seems to have sparked it. I was pricing flights to my brother's in Memphis. On Christmas Eve they were $175 each. The day after Christmas they were up $90 each.

 

[Native NYer]

I bought our tickets at the same exact time last year. We flew American and I think they may have been the same times that I'm looking at now. Last year I paid $180 per ticket. The same flight now is $300+. Seriously???

I live right next to O'Hare which you would think would get me cheaper airfares since it's a central hub for a lot of stuff. Nope. Can't do Southwest because they don't fly out of O'Hare.

I'll wait a couple more weeks to see if they come down but it looks like I'll be spending almost a grand on airfare. Bah!

I'm experiencing the same thing. Last year, I got tickets for $99 each way from LaGuardia to MCO on American for August 2008. This year, JFK to MCO has fluctuated from $159 to $194 each way for August 2010

I bought tickets in January/February for August 2008. I'm hoping if I wait a bit, the prices will come down.

I've also priced JetBlue and Delta. Delta is reasonable, but JetBlue is more expensive than American. We've considered Southwest from Long Island- MacArthur, but with two small children (6 and 2 at the time of travel), an airline with assigned seats seem to make the most sense.

A friend travels to Chicago frequently to visit family. He's told me Midway has much more reasonable fares. I'd look into that airport.

 

[JamieW]

Why can't you fly out of Midway? I went to college in Chicago and did it all the time.

 

[Colleen27]

Since Dec 25th all flights have gone up. That incident in Detroit seems to have sparked it. I was pricing flights to my brother's in Memphis. On Christmas Eve they were $175 each. The day after Christmas they were up $90 each.

I noticed that too, more on some airlines than others. Delta/NW went up a lot. Spirit and Airtran not so much, $10-20 but nothing like the $75-100 jump I saw on Delta/NW. I won't be buying our tix for a couple more months, so hopefully by then the fares will be a little better.

 

[Kimmumum]

On 12/28 we purchased tickets to Orlando out of Midway for mid-January. The price has gone DOWN 3 times. I hope they go down even more. I love SW!!

 

[MomPOM]

Why can't you fly out of Midway? I went to college in Chicago and did it all the time.

I certainly *can* but it's not ideal as O"hare is literally 5 minutes away and Midway is 30-45 minutes without traffic. Plus I would have to pay to park a car for 9 days. I don't think the pricing would be that different with that factored in. I will do a cost comparison when I get home to see if it really makes that big of a difference.

 

[m&m's mom]

I absolutely agree!
I live within 15 mins of Dallas/Ft Worth airport and have been looking into airfare from DFW to Barcelona Spain for over a year for this summer. Nothing is remotely affordable. I am going to end up paying $6000 just for 4 plane tickets !
The same flight was around $650 or so for last summer and cheapest now is $1190.

 

[kaytieeldr]

Yes, it's a lot more than you paid last year - but it's only about fourteen cents per mile.

 

[jlima]

The airlines are trying to maximize their revenue . . . it sucks but they are trying to squeeze out every dollar they can.

 

[mzlee]

Midway is my choice also because of Southwest. I also check St. Louis since I'm located between St. Louis and Chicago and either way is about the same disance. I avoid O'Hare at all cost because it is just to congested for me. Southwest is always my first option because its generally cheaper than other airlines and I like nonstop flights. This past summer we flew from Indy and we paid less than $400 for 3 RT tickets to Orlando.