Pay more or drive a little, Van to Sea?

January 30, 2006 11:24 PM

Why is it so much more expensive to fly from Vancouver than Seattle?

And that applies to pretty much anywhere outside of Canada.

Examples:
(all examples are for one adult, in CAD, and prices are the cheapest on Travelocity, and other listing sites seem to have the same):

Vancouver to London: $573
Seattle to London: $405

Vancouver to Reykjavik: $1474
Seattle to Reykjavik: $929

Vancouver to Atlanta, GA: $408
Seattle to Atlanta, GA: $309

Vancouver to Bangkok: $1368
Seattle to Bangkok: $760

In 2004, 15.7million people flew through YVR (Vancouver), and 28.7 flew through Sea-Tac airport. I realize that there are economies of scale, but that was a record year for Sea-Tac and Vancouver is a very busy place with plenty of full flights.

It seems to me that there must be some obvious difference, but I don't know what it is, and if it's taxes I'd really like to complain about it to the new Canadian government.

posted by Kickstart70 to travel & transportation (12 comments total)

It could be taxes or landing fees. If SeaTac is running at or below capacity, and Vancouver is running above capacity, then YVR may be charging higher fees in order to try to keep the volume down.
posted by b1tr0t at 11:31 PM on January 30, 2006

Kinda long here -

1) Does airfare pricing ever make sense?
2) Are they really comparable markets?

Especially for flights to Asia - and even given Vancouver's big Asian population - I'd think that there's probably much more connecting traffic from the rest of the United States to Asia through Seattle.

One idea: maybe because domestic flights are less profitable in the US because of airlines like Southwest creating a supercompetitive atmosphere (maybe I'm way off base there?), the major airlines have to make up the difference by offering more frequent/comprehensive service abroad, which probably yields more money per passenger, especially for business/first class, than using the same plane on a domestic service would.

Keep in mind also that if it wasn't such a hassle for non-US citizens to transit through the United States (ie, on a flight from X-USA-Y, you've got to clear US immigration even if you aren't leaving the airport), we'd probably have an even bigger share of the market.

Finally, from itasoftware.com, an airfare-finding site:

Vancouver to Hong Kong, 2/21-2/28
Air Canada
$867 US

Seattle to Hong Kong, 2/21-2/28
Air Canada, via Vancouver!
$666 US

-same flights to/from Hong Kong on the same airline
-same dates
-same class of service

I mean, really, what the hell is that?
posted by mdonley at 12:12 AM on January 31, 2006

Dunno, but these guys would.
posted by ori at 1:00 AM on January 31, 2006

If SeaTac is running at or below capacity, and Vancouver is running above capacity, then YVR may be charging higher fees in order to try to keep the volume down.

You mean: YVR is charging higher fees because they can. They don't want anything less than maximum volumes at maximum fares.

If they knew you would pay 10,000 dollars to fly to HK and back, they would charge you 9,990 dollars and try to convince you that you were getting a deal.

Vancouver will get lower fares when Vancouver starts losing enough people to Seattle to make a difference to Vancouver airport and the airlines flying out of it.
posted by pracowity at 1:16 AM on January 31, 2006

Does airfare pricing ever make sense?

Yes, it usually does. The airlines try to charge as much as they possibly can for a given market, and are usually quite good at it. This may have little relationship to the costs or the distance travelled.

In reality, consumer pricing in many other lines of business may also be less to the costs than one might expect, but it's not as easy for people to guess the relative costs of goods when compared to transportation.
posted by grouse at 1:57 AM on January 31, 2006

You'd have to factor taxes into the difference, as well, as I imagine they're quite a lot higher on Canadian flights than US ones.

But there's simply staggeringly less competition in Canada, especially for international flights. In terms of Canadian airlines that fly internationally, there's, let's see, Air Canada. And then there's Air Canada. And after that, we have Air Canada. So while Air Canada has some competition from non-Canadian airlines flying to their various destinations (i.e. British to London, Air France to Paris), they're the only airline that's highly visible to Canadians that flies those routes.
posted by jacquilynne at 6:26 AM on January 31, 2006

Try asking the guy(s) at enplaned. It's a blog about the business of air travel and they would know the nitty gritty politics better than travelers would.

And the flight to Atlanta is domestic vs. international, so that one should have a differential. I've been looking at flights from the US to Mexico and the taxes and fees are almost $100 just because it is international. Customs and such.
posted by smackfu at 6:44 AM on January 31, 2006

My knee-jerk reaction would be simply "Vancouver serves a smaller region, so there are fewer flights. Fewer flights means higher prices to justify having the service in the first place." I could be wrong, but it seems to be as simple as that.

Vancouver will get lower fares when Vancouver starts losing enough people to Seattle to make a difference

Which is true. But moreover, Vancouver is a 2-3 hour drive and an international border crossing away from Seattle, so they are that much more likely to just suck it up and pay the higher fares out of Vancouver.
posted by frogan at 8:39 AM on January 31, 2006

As a Vancouverite that has flown out of Seattle to overseas destinations multiple times, I can attest that it's a good way to save money. Get a cheap airport hotel at Seatac the night before, they allow you to park in their lot while you're gone and shuttle you too/from the airport. Easy cheap and convienient.
posted by Keith Talent at 9:11 AM on January 31, 2006

It has to do with utility and . The utility enjoyed by those who avoid driving to Seattle appears to be about $100 for a domestic flight and up to $800 on an international flight. Let's assume 7 hours return driving time, $50 in gas, and parking for one week ($100). If you typically make $25 an hour, this means $325. That means the domestic YVR rate is actually a bargain or maybe breakeven.

But let's say you value that delay at more than your typical hourly rate. Let's say that being well rested, relaxed and what-not is worth $50 an hour to you. That means leaving from YVR is worth $500. And let's say you're going for 2 weeks. So add another $100 for parking. So now leaving from YVR is worth $600.

And this is all assuming your time is valued at $25 or $50 an hour. Given the price you're paying for bagels and coffee at the airport, I'd say a lot of people value their time at even higher rates.

With all this in mind, there is also the matter of the quasi-tariffs imposed by YVR and their effects on supply-side economics. Other posts already describe that.
posted by acoutu at 10:54 AM on January 31, 2006

International airfares are (generally) regulated under the price-setting cartel of the IATA. Meaning, no "free market" competition on published fares (Travelocity only lists "published" fares). Meaning, comparing Vancouver->Atlanta to SEA->Atlanta is a bit misleading. Market analysis, while helpful, is probably irrelevant here. This regulation explanation is inapplicable to prices differences where the destination is within the U.S.

To the extent that there are price differences to non-U.S. destinations (e.g., Frankfurt), it's probably differences in the negotiated rate regulation between the U.S. and Canada.
posted by soda pop at 11:37 AM on January 31, 2006

soda pop's link is to someone who argues that consolidators and other non-standard sellers of tickets can essentially beat the system of fixed prices. It may have escaped the author of that page that there are price wars all the time, and that prices fluctuate widely.

If there are in fact no direct sales (on airline or other websites) of cheap international flights, that has obviously escaped the attention of flyertalk and other websites that specialize in scouring such websites for the lowest prices. One might wonder why extremely large numbers of people visit such sites, or why such sites been discussed on AskMetafilter in previous questions without any comments at all about how useless they are.
posted by WestCoaster at 4:48 PM on January 31, 2006