One way flights - why so expensive?

Daily Life, Swiss News and General Topics
1
I seem to remember this being discussed a while back, but can't find the thread... but why are one way flights being so (often) disproportionately expensive compared to return flights? Is the airline at a disadvantage with only single direction travel? I assume they need full flights to make it economically viable, but maybe more people would fly more in each direction if it weren't so expensive?

Is there a way of booking a one way flight that's not more expensive than it's return equivalent?

For example, we were hoping to fly to London and holiday there, then catch the ferry to France, somehow get to Paris (train/bus haven't investigated that yet), take the kids to Disneyland (I know, it's overpriced/not as good as the US but we may never get there ) and then come back via TGV.

2
SWISS has one way specials:

http://www.swiss.com/countries/CH/en..._Specials.aspx

http://www.smartertravel.com/travel-...tml?id=2839052

One way or Return are not the only game in town. There is also the Open Jaw for travelers.

Try this for potential deals incl. one ways.

3
Book a return ticket and dont turn up for the return leg is cheaper then a one way or go easyjet

4
Doing this repeatedly with the same airline can lead to you being blacklisted and prevented from booking flights, particularly in the US. One-offs are fine, particularly if you ring up with an "excuse" not to travel.

If you're flying to/from the UK, then BA let you buy singles at (more or less) half the price of returns.

5
They do for flights within Europe. But most certainly do not for long haul! A World Traveller (economy) one-way to the US/Asia can be more expensive than a World Traveller plus (premium economy) or Club World (business) return. A good option to avoid this then is the ability to use Avios (miles) to book a one-way reward flight at half the price of a return. Same applies to other airlines such as AA. Interestingly some other airlines do offer cheaper one-ways on long haul routes - thinking here of Malaysia Airlines.

6
Thanks jrspet & Wallabies

I'm not sure that leaving from Geneva is ideal for us, with a 2 & 4 year old in tow, I think the extra 4 hours going to Geneva from Chur will make for a painful day!

I forgot about Easyjet, it wasn't showing up in my searches (ebookers) because I was only looking at Heathrow... miles cheaper

7
Thanks again Will need to play around with different variables to see what works out.

Maybe going to the airlines direct ie. BA will yield better results that a generic booking site. Swiss one way to London was CHF1115

Food for thought...

8
Yep BA have plenty of one ways from ZRH-LHR next week starting at CHF 127 all in (including lots of luggage unlike the Luton lot) and some later in the month for CHF 97.

9
"can lead to you being blacklisted and prevented from booking flights"

Strange business; they get the opportunity to sell the return seat twice & then they blacklist you!

10
Not if you don't show..., in any case they over sell seats as there will be many no shows from people with flexible tickets.

11
Just fly easyJet and in doing so make the point to them that this situation, which exists to rip off business travellers (for which we all pay when we buy products and services), is unfair.

The low-costs don't do it, so the others don't need to either.

Neil

12
I think this is very American, just as the excessive overbooking with people standing at the gate hoping they still get on...

In Europe have I done the same as well as cross booking flights for years - never even raised an eyebrow at Swiss or SAS.

13
is this just FUD or to you have any hard source to support your statement?

14
Just book Easyjet, or go by train.

15
Is that true?

I would have thought that strictly speaking under data protection laws it would be illegal for them to keep or use records of your past flying activity if you did not specifically cede them that right (for example by signing up to a frequent flyer program).

16
If you read the contract of carriage of the airline, it is generally forbidden to not use the return ticket (at least in the US, not sure about European airlines). Here in the Delta airlines terms it is specifically mentioned on page 17.

http://www.delta.com/content/www/en_...riage-dgr.html

In reality I do not know how well they check.

If you call up and say you had a family emergency or some such excuse and cant use the return I think you can get away with it.

17
For some airlines one-way was always business class. I.e. there are no economy one way flights.

I know about ten years ago I did a round robin - basel->london->brussels->basel, and even though company policy was economy for short-haul, they were all business class flights.

18
It's a bummer. Eurostar is especially bad that way.

Options where one-way is not more expensive:

Easyjet

Ryanair (ritual humiliation but it is cheap)

Flybe (think this is winter only)

Ferry from Amsterdam if you want to do a big loop with a sleeper train

Alternative - just take TGV and Eurostar all the way to London and then stop on the way back at Disneyland.

19
Once some years ago I had a lady phone me from Swiss & threaten me with blacklisting when I was doing this.

She also did not like that I had multiple overlapping London Zürich return tickets. At that time for some cheaper tickets you needed to have up to one week or more between outgoing flight & return - at least 3 days if I remember correctly.

Anyway nobody ever took any action.

20
I guess it's because

1) They don't understand the market has changed and more people do round trips and complicated itineraries these days. They still think the typical holidaymaker is going to Mallorca with buckets and spades and will return on the same connection 10 days later. Ideally they'd also like to sell you a hotel of their choice. Creative thinking and individuality on your part offends them. Essentially, many airlines are still firmly stuck in the 1990s.

2) Competition. They are afraid that if one-way flights are easier to get you will book the return with a different airline, so they want to make that complicated for you. They don't understand that people flying out with another airline may smilarly return with them. It's cartell thinking. You end up flying at times that are less ideal because the rival airline with more ideally timed flights cannot be combined with theirs. It makes things easier for scheduling as they can sell you what they want rather than what you want.

3) Failure to understand. The likes of Easyjet and Ryanair shook up the industry and ate into the bottom line of the dinosaur-cartell-carriers. But these failed to understand what the game really was and responded simply by lowering their prices. Only slowly is the flexibility also following suite. It's like the food and drinks. On a legacy carrier its all included, meaning it doesn't have to be good or competitive and nobody cares whether you take it or leave it. Easyjet has to price and market its food and beverages and every sale counts so they have to listen to customers more. The result is that you now eat and drink better stuff on Easyjet than on the legacy cariers. Think of it like capitalism versus socialsm.

4) They still beleive the customer is the enemy. Hence stories about blacklisting customers etc.