Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Something's Wrong

Wifey flew to Cincinnati this morn.

Here's the deal: she took a flight from DC to Detroit to Cincinnati because the direct flight to Cincinnati would have been $1200 and the two leg flight through Detroit only cost $350.

Somewhere in there is a lesson about capitalism and the free market and efficiency and so forth. . . .

But WTF?

2 comments:

  1. Supply and demand, dude. Non-stops are priced for pain. Has to do with hubs and competition. What used to get me is flying from Reagan to Minneapolis for a two hour lunch meeting--my ticket $960; nice old lady next to me $140. Why? Biz travelers take it in the shorts because we need flexibility in scheduling. I couldn't buy non-refundable tickets because meetings change. Think about it tho--for the price of the $960 ticket they could have rolled the dice, rescheduled the meeting twice, and still come out ahead. I guess they do those meetings via the net these days.

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  2. In-elasticity of demand for business travelers. It surely does hurt, tho.

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