Why Are Flights to Canadian Cities from Chicago So Expensive?

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Why are tickets to Canadian cities from Chicago Ohare so crazy expensive? Calgary, Ottawa, and Halifax are all about $800 RT. WTF mate! rant over
 
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Wow, that's crazy. I wonder why. You can fly to England for half that.
 
If you can figure out air-fare rates, let us all know. When I was consulting for a mill in south GA, I could buy a round-trip ticket on Delta to Atlanta (their major hub) for about $1000. If I took a connector to Tallahassee (also on Delta) the total round trip fare was about $250. How could I save Delta $750 by taking another ride to Florida? I used to do that routinely, rent a car in FL, and drive back up to south GA. I had a really nice contract with that mill, but Delta wouldn't cut me any slack on bulk advance ticket purchases, so I had to spend more time and fly on to FL every time. I spent one week a month on-site, and saving $750 a month was a pretty big deal. out of a $50K/yr contract. My contract with Westvaco in KY was much sweeter, but it's pretty hard to get there without first flying to Nashville and taking a puddle-jumper to Paducah. Not much in west KY, and the little flights were more expensive than they should have been.

I had a pretty tight relationship with the local travel agency back then, since I was paying for all my travel, lodging, and food, and the ladies worked hard to cut my costs, though I had to jump through some hoops in order to get discounted fares, including staying over weekends in what were considered (destination) cities.
 
Hmmm - International, lack of competition.

Acually, if I fly my main airline, it would be ~$612 round trip from ORD to Halifax (8/15/09 - 8/20/09). So in this case, it depends on which airline, when, and how far in advance one purchases the ticket.

Flying from Newark (EWR) to any those cities would be as low as ~$418 to Halifax, $472 to Calgary.
 
Evo said:
Wow, that's crazy. I wonder why. You can fly to England for half that.
I just checked some specials flights to England and W. Europe are running between $410-$700 round trip (tax not included).

I could fly to Melbourne, AUS, from NY for ~$1200, and that's a regular fare (nonrefundable).


So Greg - fly to London or Manchester or Paris or Madrid, and then from there to Calgary or Halifax. :smile:
 
Greg Bernhardt said:
Why are tickets to Canadian cities from Chicago Ohare so crazy expensive? Calgary, Ottawa, and Halifax are all about $800 RT. WTF mate! rant over
Typical American. Misjudging the awesome size of Canada. To get to the closest of those cities requires crossing eleven time zones*.

*in Canadian hours
 
DaveC426913 said:
Typical American. Misjudging the awesome size of Canada. To get to the closest of those cities requires crossing eleven time zones*.

*in Canadian hours


I thought it was eleven and a half time zones, if you include Newfoundland Labrador.

:smile:
 
Greg Bernhardt said:
Why are tickets to Canadian cities from Chicago Ohare so crazy expensive? Calgary, Ottawa, and Halifax are all about $800 RT. WTF mate! rant over

...'cos Canada's really big! :-p
 
Greg Bernhardt said:
Why are tickets to Canadian cities from Chicago Ohare so crazy expensive? Calgary, Ottawa, and Halifax are all about $800 RT. WTF mate! rant over

Are you being restrictive with you dates, or traveling at a peak time of year?

Try this website I found a bit ago: http://matrix.itasoftware.com/cvg/dispatch/ It's better than price comparison websites, since they aren't selling the product and so don't have to push certain airlines.

Evo said:
You can fly to England for half that.

I wish you could fly to England for $400!
 
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cristo said:
I wish you could fly to England for $400!
Yeah - but I bet you're so close that you could see England through your window. You could walk there, you know. :biggrin:
 
Astronuc said:
Yeah - but I bet you're so close that you could see England through your window. You could walk there, you know. :biggrin:

:smile: You know what I mean!
 
Astronuc said:
I just checked some specials flights to England and W. Europe are running between $410-$700 round trip (tax not included).

The guys selling tickets for 410 bucks are the British airlines who charge you 300 bucks in tax.
 
Astronuc said:
Yeah - but I bet you're so close that you could see England through your window.
Except it's always raining
You could walk there, you know.
The polar bears would get you
 
Here is what I found using Bing. All are round trips on Aug 18 returning Aug 25 economy class.
Chicago - Calgary: 1390 miles $606
Chicago - Ottowa: 645 miles $566
Chicago - Halifax: 1220 miles $567
Chicago - London: 3961 miles $715
Philadelphia - Paris: 3716 miles $609

Obviously, using cost/mile as an indicator, people are more anxious to leave Chicago than Phila. and more anxious to go to Canada than Europe.
 
Ever since Canadian Airlines folded, prices have been creeping up. Supply and demand, I guess.
 
mgb_phys said:
Except it's always raining
That's why the English perfected the umbrella, and then developed bola hats to go with the umbrellas. :-p
 
I'm going to go with the peak season theory. July and August are the only months when Canada is defrosted enough to visit. :biggrin:

Throw in a couple hundred bucks more and you could join me here in Mozambique. It's hard to remember it's winter here when it's 70-75 F during the day (don't ask me what that is in C yet). The only way to be aware it's winter is that the sun goes down early, but with the adjustment to the different time zone, I don't know what time it is most of the day anyway.
 
Astronuc said:
...and then developed bola hats ...
Are those anything like bowler hats?
 
DaveC426913 said:
Are those anything like bowler hats?
No 'bola' hats are worn by the traditional London cowboys to round up llamas - you tie two of them together and spin them around your head (unless it's raining)