Why does Delta charge such absurd fares out of Cincinnati?
I am a local business traveler and I can't understand why all Cincinnati flights are hundreds of dollars more, even for coach. I could understand when it was a huge hub with 600 flights a day, but now I usually fly out of Dayton since I have to connect anyway. Why does Delta continue to do this when Cincinnati has something like 60 less destinations than it used to?
Air Travel - 4 Answers
Random Answers, Critics, Comments, Opinions :
1 :
maybe because you don't plan ahead maybe you leave at the last minute all airlines charge higher fees as the day of departure approaches maybe if you plan your trip in advance -3 or 6 months in advance you might find the fees lower also who said you must fly on delta there is no law saying you have to fly on delta here a perfect example like i just priced Cincinnati to Atlanta on july 21 price is 424,.00 but the same trip done in november 21 is $310.00 = which is 114 lower! both using delta airlines (I used travelocity) now us airways is even cheaper at 264. but we are talking delta
2 :
from what i heard, flying out of Cincinnati through Delta has always been super expensive because Delta has more flights to and from Cincinnati than all the other airlines, and so they feel that they have "seniority." i've heard of people who do drive a couple of hours to other airports just because it's way cheaper. you should probably continue to fly out of Dayton like usual....the prices in Cincinnati are absolutely ridiculous.
3 :
Believe it or not, the prices have actually come down a bit. Delta saw that they were losing a lot of customers to Dayton, Indianapolis, Columbus, Louisville and Lexington and started to lower many of their fares. We are not the most expensive city to fly out of now. However Delta still has the most flights out of CVG and we still do not have a major discount airline to compete against Delta. I see a USA 3000 flight every so often but the number of flights the airline has is nothing. Until Delta's presence decreases like US Airways did it Pittsburgh (airline used to have around 600 flights a day. Now they are down to around 50), no discount airline will come in. Pittsburgh now has AirTran, JetBlue and Southwest. Also know that Delta has cut the number of flights out of CVG and are using smaller aircraft. The biggest airplane Delta has at CVG is the 767 but that aircraft goes to Paris. We don't have the 757 aircraft going into Seattle, Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco. The airline uses the 737 and Airbus aircraft which seat at least 30-40 fewer passengers. Each flight out of CVG right now during the summer months are completely full. Therefore with fewer available seats, the airline can raise ticket prices.
4 :
They can do this because of the lack of competition on routes out of Cincinnati. Its basic supply and demand and they can get away with it because of the lack of competition. American Airlines does the same thing our of its hub cities. The best thing to do is get one of the frequent flyer cards and use the miles.
