Yes, I’m stating the obvious again, but once again – European airlines are the masters of the Saturday away rule.
Allow me to elaborate. The Saturday night away rule is used by a lot of airlines to separate business and leisure travellers – with business travellers prepared to pay hand over fist, whilst the leisure travellers will put up with the inconvenience of a night somewhere else.
Now, Low cost airlines have tried to do away with this as they sell as one way tickets (as do a few other airlines).
However, the Saturday night away rule is alive and well at Brussels Airlines.
Lets have a look at a route Birmingham to Brussels isn’t the farthest route in the world – in fact it’s 288 miles. (A comparable return run between Birmingham and Dublin is a 400 mile round trip which starts at £65 return)
So we’re looking at a 574 miles round trip.
Map – Great Circle Mapper – www.gcmap.com
Comparing two sets of flights – Depart Friday, Return Saturday:
That’s an effective £0.79… or near enough near enough $1.20 a mile in the air, with a full fare economy ticket.
Now lets shift those days 1 day forward, so the Saturday night falls in:
So now, the “economy” fares turn up. How… convenient. Not. This works out at £0.22 or $0.34 a mile in the air.
And of course, Brussels Airlines will happily charge you £4.50 to issue the ticket if not via PayPal.
Now there are some airlines that have thrown away the Saturday night rule (British Airways and Aer Lingus are two airlines that come to mind when it comes to single fare pricing).
Now, considering there are options (Such as Train+Eurostar), and other airlines if I venture down to London, this is silly pricing (and where Brussels Airlines I suspect makes a few pennies) isn’t conducive to those who just want to go away for a night.
And this is where low-cost airlines will happily eat legacy airline breakfast, lunch dinner and after-dinner snacks, by providing flexibility at a lower price point.
And why Brussels? I’ll be at Travel Magic 2013.
Whilst I won’t be speaking (and really – do you want to hear how to make your life better in the back of the plane from me? If you do, drop me an email ;)), I will be attending along with Lucky from One Mile at a Time (who is also speaking)
If you’re there.. look out for me – I’ll have a bunch of “Remove before flight” keyrings to give away!
What about one-way fares? Many fares in USA are now quoted as 1-way which is great as it makes it easy to construct multi point itineraries or to mix and match airlines based on routes or times.
Are the European legacies still resisting that?
One way fares were pricing out at £246- full fare…
Some legacies see these as a cash cow…
The goal of airlines is to make money, they aren’t charging extra because it is fun, they are doing it because it makes them more money.
A small note I should make is that the expensive tickets are B.Flex, which is essentially full fare Y, whereas the other ones are B.Light which are the cheap bottom barrel fares generally. So you are essentially comparing completely different fare buckets.
This doesn’t mean it’s an acceptable business practice though, and in a way it pains me to see my home airline engage in such practices.
Alas on the Friday out – Saturday back, it was just B.flex tickets… Getting a b.light to price is hard from the regions unless you throw in the Saturday.
Which is a pain.
And yes Xandar – I will be taking a good look at your home airline… As well as the state of SMCB..,,
Well, since Brussels appears to be your final destination, you won’t have too much of a bother with the NMBS/SNCB who are actually running quite well at this point (the airport services are still done using the antique junk though) and they recently (about bloody time too) started using new ticket machines that also accept non-Belgian debit cards and credit cards.