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0 pointsScoundreller4y ago0 comments

> loophole with those minimum transfer times

I have to ask why it’s a loophole. OP consumed just as much train with long stops as someone that travelled directly.

It’s odd, in aviation, you’ll pay less with longer layovers and more for direct, even though direct is the least miles in the air.

I get it that suppliers like to charge more for more convenience but really, the cost of provision is the same (or less!).

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4 comments · 3 top-level

bleuchase4y ago· 1 in thread

> It’s odd, in aviation, you’ll pay less with longer layovers and more for direct, even though direct is the least miles in the air.

What’s odd? Supply and demand. More people want direct flights so they cost more money.

someonewhocar3s4y ago

No, that's odd. Supply is not much restricted per route.

There's simply a pricing model where a more convenient or luxurious travel intiniary is more expensive. Only temporary popularity shifts could do a supply/demand price run, otherwise larger airplanes generally lower costs per passenger, and running more flights on the same line is likely a reduced effort and risk than having more lines.

Low-performance or high-variance lines could be higher priced due to having to pay for empty seats (on the same line of flights) but I believe this is not usual. The remaining passengers would be fewer.

I should think air travel would greatly improve with better customer-risk-treatment (e.g. no security - more like busses) and a 'ticketing model' that's as complicated as buying train tickets. Perhaps then we will see some more imaginative forms of air travel.

Freak_NL4y ago

It's a loophole because they can put a cap on these low early reservation, fixed itinerary prices because of the assumption that only people travelling on a shoe-string budget will do more than six hours of travelling in a single sitting. This keeps the number of travellers who do Norddeich Mole – Zagreb Glavni kolodvor (eighteen hours of train travel) to a minimum — essentially just some students and people on the bottom rung of the economic ladder. A negligible number of people.

Once you start allowing extreme transfer times of 24 hours, you are basically inviting people to exploit that system, which will drive prices up eventually, because those people would otherwise have bought multiple tickets (one for each stage of the journey).

Rebelgecko4y ago

Airlines actually make it kinda difficult to get longer layovers, and a lot of them have gotten rid of open jaw itineraries. I think the reason that some indirect flights are cheaper is that you're picking up excess capacity on underutilized flights (which, like you said, let's them charge a premium when direct flight seats are scarce)

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