Lower Airfare to Europe

[carolinacaniac]

I know this has nothing to do directly with theme parks or coasters, but I read an article from Yahoo about how airfare may go down for travel to Europe from the US based on a proposed agreement.

 

http://biz.yahoo.com/ms/070427/192036.html?.v=1&.pf=family-home

 

Sounds to me like getting those European credits or going on a future TPR trip may even more possible in the future!

[Noxegon]

You may find that the cheapest way to get to Europe currently is to fly through Ireland.

 

Aerlingus.com sells low fare seats to Dublin, and you can use Ryanair.com from there for ridiculously small amounts of money. Just watch out for the baggage regulations.

[pete4winds]

I know this has nothing to do directly with theme parks or coasters...

 

That being the case, this might be more at home in the "Random" thread. Although, this does sound like it might make European credit whoring MUCH easier for those of us who can't dump all of our money into TPR trips.

[turbolaaf]

Is it really that expensive for you in the USA ?

I know we pay € 500 for our next trip to Cleveland in 2 weeks from now.

This will result in about $ 650 with the current rates.

[carolinacaniac]

I know for me, leaving from Raleigh-Durham (RDU), to get to Europe, the cheapest I have found was around $1000. I have looked at D.C. before too, and found it only saved $100 or so. I know sometimes you can get som great deals, but they usually occur when I wouldn't even dream of traveling because I don't have the time for it. I might have to look into Noxegon's idea too sometime and see how that would work. But what kind of bag restrictions would they have?

[bluea61]

The British Airlines such as Ryanair and Easyjet allow one big piece of Hand Lugguage and then you pay per bag if you want one in the hold. Its something along those lines. Its also true with Flybe another no frills airline.

[carolinacaniac]

so what kind of price range do the charges go to, or are you not really sure?

[ParkTrips]

Is it really that expensive for you in the USA ?

I know we pay € 500 for our next trip to Cleveland in 2 weeks from now.

This will result in about $ 650 with the current rates.

I paid $1350 for July but then again, if you are going in 2 weeks, thats still before the Memorial Day weekend, traditional kickoff of American travel season. I mean even this late I checked fares to London for 2 weeks from now and it'd be about $800 for me..

[bluea61]

This is the case for Flybe:

 

Cabin Baggage - 10kg Max

Hold Baggage - 23kg for Economy, 30kg for Premium Economy

 

Hold charged at £3.00/$6.00 in advance or £6.00/$12.00 on the day per piece per sector. (Not sure what per sector means)

[willski]

It's not that expensive in the first place, but yeah, Open Skies might help a very small amount.

 

 

As it stands right now, European and US airlines can't just fly wherever they want to, they first must file for rights from the US, UK, or EU governments. It's really not that difficult of a process, but it does prevent some airlines from flying a few routes.

 

Generally, European and US airlines have already identified and are flying the most profitable, highest-yield routes, and will defend their turf against new transatlantic carriers, which are not as easy to start up because of current regulations.

 

The only real way that Open Skies could help airfares is on point-to-point transatlantic flights on new transatlantic low-cost carriers. For example, instead of flying St. Louis-JFK-Heathrow-Manchester on American and British Airways, passengers could fly STL-MAN directly on an airline like Thomsonfly.

 

However, there is a very limited market from STL-MAN alone, probably in the vicinity of 500 passengers a week. In order to successfully operate this flight, an airline would need to fly an aircraft capable of carrying about 200 passengers 3x weekly. There is only one aircraft that could potentially fit this segment, the 757-200, but operating this flight puts it at the extreme edge of its capabilities. Therefore, the aircraft would either have to always operate the westbound flight with significantly lessened passenger and cargo loads, or it would have to stop, which would entirely negate the purpose of a point to point flight. Either way, the flight is not optimised for profitability, and using a larger plane fewer times a week would simply make it even less convenient.

 

So basically, Open Skies is not going to do much in the way of fare reductions until more capable medium-capacity aircraft are available.

 

 

I know for me, leaving from Raleigh-Durham (RDU), to get to Europe, the cheapest I have found was around $1000. I have looked at D.C. before too, and found it only saved $100 or so.

 

Of course it's expensive out of RDU, American has a monopoly on flights, especially international-the only international flight out of RDU is to Gatwick, and it's subsidized by GlaxoSmithKline, otherwise it wouldn't be operating.

 

Dulles and Hartsfield are your best bets from Europe. Get a cheap flight on AirTran to ATL and then fly Delta or another international airline to Europe. You could also check Lufthansa's fares out of Charlotte, they are known for having really cheap economy tickets just to fill seats because the business and first cabins are full.

[carolinacaniac]

Thanks for the suggestions Willski, AirTran to Atlanta may not be a bad idea. My fiancee and I are flying to Detroit in a little less than a month, and we are taking AirTran from RDU to DTW via Atlanta. Turned out to be cheaper than Southwest which is usually the cheapest for going from RDU to DTW.

[ginzo]

Thanks for the suggestions Willski, AirTran to Atlanta may not be a bad idea. My fiancee and I are flying to Detroit in a little less than a month, and we are taking AirTran from RDU to DTW via Atlanta. Turned out to be cheaper than Southwest which is usually the cheapest for going from RDU to DTW.

 

Yeah, and you get a seating assignment with Airtran! Southwest's system sucks when you're not traveling alone.

[carolinacaniac]

You know, I have never traveled with southwest with others. So I can really say yeay or ney to that, but I could see the issue you are talking about. It would be bad if you and a friend were in Group C, and all that's left are all middle seats.