The airline industry has been in the national spotlight over the past few months, with reports of rising prices and a lackluster customer service record compounded by record-breaking numbers of delayed and canceled flights.
A number of recently announced consolidations -- United Airlines' plan to purchase US Airways and American Airlines' bid for TWA -- have raised concerns that the airline industry will become more monopolistic, with even higher prices and fewer choices.
Airline customers in Memphis are already used to monopolistic pricing. Eighty-five percent of the airline traffic at Memphis International Airport is controlled by Northwest Airlines, which sets the dominant fares in the market because it's able to offer non-stop service to many locations. Neighboring cities that have more competition with fewer non-stop flights, such as Nashville and Little Rock, often offer significantly lower fares.
But even in Memphis, the fares are not universally high. Each travel market has a number of different fares available to customers. Business travelers with inflexible travel plans will pay top dollar for airline tickets, and the airlines take advantage of that by setting very high prices for last-minute travel arrangements. But planes filled with just high-fare business travelers would be nearly empty, so airlines offer a range of widely discounted fares for leisure travelers who are extremely price conscious and plan in advance. A survey of fares currently published in the airline reservation guide revealed that, depending on the flights chosen, a round trip ticket between Memphis and Atlanta could cost as little as $106 or as much as $1,700.
"The prices out of the Memphis airport have been so high that I usually fly out of Little Rock for a better fare," said Jemal Jackson, a University of Memphis student who often travels to Dallas to visit family members. "I have even tried to take Greyhound."
Indeed, the average price for a weekend round-trip ticket between Memphis and Dallas is $238, compared to $106 between Little Rock and Dallas.
Ironically, one of the airlines offering the $106 fare between Little Rock and Dallas is Northwest, with an itinerary connecting in Memphis.
Because the airline pricing systems are still controlled by manual entry of prices for specific markets, there are occasional glitches which can result in ridiculously low fares for some lucky customers. For about 55 minutes on Jan. 31, the United Airlines website at ual.com offered glitch airfares -- as low as $24 for a round-trip between San Francisco and Paris. The airline sold 143 tickets at the low prices. At first, United Airlines tried to dispute the validity of the issued tickets, but finally resigned itself to the fact that the low-price tickets will be honored.
The United Airlines incident was not an isolated occurrence. Midway Airlines, an airline that briefly served Memphis in 1999 and 2000, posted some very low airfares to Florida on the reservation system one day.
"Last January I was able to travel from Memphis to Jacksonville, Florida with three friends for $18 round-trip per person," Memphis resident Adam Vaina said. "That's cheaper than driving."
Students interested in getting the best airline deals for their spring break vacation have several options. Best prices are usually available with 14-day or 21-day advance purchase, and for itineraries that include a Saturday night stay-over at the destination. Online travel agencies, such as travelocity.com and expedia.com, can provide good comparison information on fares offered by different airlines. Savvio.com allows web-surfers the opportunity to compare the lowest fares quoted by fourteen different travel web sites.
Finally, some sites, such as priceline.com, allow customers to bid on the price of airline tickets, with the caveat that the actual routing and time of the trip will not be disclosed until after a non-refundable ticket has been purchased.
Some of the lowest currently available fares from Memphis to popular vacation destinations currently include Chicago at $150, New York at $174, Miami at $192, Orlando at $192, Fort Walton Beach at $198 and Los Angeles at $318. Lowest fares to Europe currently include London at $282, Zurich, Switzerland at $338 and Rome at $418. Additional online discounts and coupons may further reduce these fares.
So, with a little research and some good luck, that dream spring break vacation can actually be more affordable that it may seem.
