Have you ever experienced these insightful moments when you realized that flying from Boston to Philadelphia costs twice the price of going from Boston to Long Beach? Normally we overlook such evident things, but when we start paying more attention to it, it's like a strike of lightning to them. Why does a flight that is ten times shorter in distance cost twice as much as a 2000+ mile flight from the exact same city with the same airline? When guided by logic, air ticket prices should be based on the fuel consumed by the airplane (or the distance travelled, which is the same thing) and when the ticket prices go up this is exactly what the airlines want us to believe. Still, it seems that there are entirely different factors that affect the ticket pricing and determine how easy it is to find cheap air tickets for a particular flight.

No doubt, air companies do take fuel and labor into consideration. But it's not that of a direct relation that you would actually expect. Actually, there are far more influential factors involved, and you wouldn't even guess them if you wouldn't apply at least some airline logic. The first one is the demographic makeup of the particular flight, or if put simply, the kind of people that fly in a particular direction regularly. Just think, if you have ever been on a flight from Boston to New York or Hartford to Washington D.C. you've probably noticed the high percentage of "suits" on the plane. Here we have two destinations particularly popular among business travellers and airlines know this very well. That's why they can put a ridiculous price on a 200-300 mile flight, knowing that the corporations and the government will pay just any price. Still, things change dramatically for price-sensitive flight such as Fort Lauderdale to Long Beach or New York to San Jose. These flights usually carry diverse groups with lower income, and if the airlines would charge higher rates no one would actually pay the price if it were too high. On that account the 2000+ mile flights cost the same or even less than those 200+ mile flights mentioned earlier. So now you understand, there's no standard pricing policy for all flights even with the same company, as all airlines will try to take advantage of the flight's character to the max. If they see that most of the travelers are actually able to pay a higher price and won't complain about it, they will simply put the highest price they can. Anyways, there's another factor that usually prevents them from doing so - presence of discount airlines on the route.

Should a discount airline enter a particular route things change for the better and it's much easier to get cheap air tickets, and not only from them. Such companies change the balance in the micro-market of a particular flight, making it impossible for large airlines to dominate it and put ridiculous prices. That means, when a discount company includes a particular route to their offer, large airways are forced to reduce the price to virtually the same level, otherwise they will just stay out of business for this particular flight. It's clear that the discounters tend to focus only on the most popular domestic and international flights. However, they are slowly diversifying their offer and actually paying attention to routes with particularly ridiculous pricing. The latest example is the Boston-Philadelphia flight, which was dominated by US Airways for a very long time, with an average ticket costing over $650. Now that the discounters started servicing the same route, the average prices dropped dramatically and now the same US Airways is offering the very same flight for only $280. So it's obvious, the presence of discounters itself is enough to deliver cheap air tickets even if flying the big companies, so their usual pricing cannot be called adequate or rational in any way.

In conclusion it would be fair to say that air ticket pricing can sometimes lack any plausible logic. The desire for revenue shared by large airlines, which sometimes looks like pure greed, can erode any pricing policy and make a very short flight ridiculously expensive. So it's better to choose the routes where the discounters are also available if you want cheap air tickets, since it's actually the only way to get true competition in air flights today.