I no longer read this rag, but when the title of the story did not read " Obama forces airlines to raise price at airports" I gave it a look, sort looks like they been reading CRT to get most of their story, or some guys here writing for WSJ now???
Texas in your travel plans? Use Houston's Bush Intercontinental Airport and you'll face the highest average domestic airfare in the country: $477. Fly from the city's Hobby Airport—29 miles away—and you'll find one of the lowest average fares in the country: $299.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 96902.html if you go to the link there is a graph that did not copy over that shows the top 100 airport rank
Pricing airline tickets is much like a rug bazaar, where the airlines try to get as much as they can out of each passenger. An analysis of fares compiled by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics shows that in the end, the lack of low-fare competition and presence of a dominant major carrier at a hub have the greatest impact on pricing.
Average Fares
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See the average domestic fare at the 100 biggest airports in the U.S.
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Houston's Bush Intercontinental shows how airlines at dominant hubs with lots of business travelers increasingly seem to be ignoring cheaper pricing competition at secondary airports in big cities. Average airfares there have steadily risen over the past three years, coinciding with the merger of Houston-based Continental Airlines into United Airlines. Ten years ago, Bush Intercontinental wasn't among the top 20 most-expensive airports. This year in the first quarter, it moved into the top spot.
No. 2 on the most-expensive list is Huntsville International Airport in Alabama, where passengers paid an average $473 in the first quarter this year. Huntsville is neither a hub for a major airline, nor home to a low-cost carrier. That means residents often drive to other airports with lower fares.
"It's a black eye, and one we've been working on for years," said Laura Gipson, spokeswoman for the airport.
To track how frequently residents flee high Huntsville fares, airport officials count license plates of county residents in airport parking lots in Nashville, Tenn., and Birmingham, Ala., both of which have much lower fares due to lots of Southwest Airlines flights. In surveys, local residents say that if a fare is $100 lower in Nashville or Birmingham, they'll drive to avoid high Huntsville fares, Ms. Gipson said.
And when a new automobile plant was choosing between Huntsville and Chattanooga, Tenn., Huntsville believed high airfares worked against it, she said. The Volkswagen plant went to Chattanooga.
Overall, the 10 most-expensive airports for air travel include six "fortress" hubs dominated by one airline and four small cities without much fare competition. Among the top 10, three are United-Continental hubs: Houston's Bush Intercontinental, Newark's Liberty and Washington's Dulles airports. Two Delta Air Lines hubs also make the top 10: Cincinnati and Memphis, Tenn.
A look at the 10 most expensive airports, and WSJ's Scott McCartney explains the reasons why airlines there are charging higher fares than other cities on Lunch Break.
Among smaller cities where there's little competition, several are in the South: Huntsville, Charleston, S.C., and Knoxville, Tenn.
"There's no getting around the fact that competition from a low-cost carrier continues to be a major factor in reducing fares," said Bob Hazel, an airport expert at consulting firm Oliver Wyman.
And even when there is head-to-head competition, the network strength of major carriers, which have contracts with big companies, loyalty from elite-level frequent fliers and high-fare perks to sell such as first-class seats and upgrades, "does seem to allow [airlines] to get a significant premium," he said.
United Airlines, which has 80% of the traffic at Bush Intercontinental, declined to discuss its pricing except to say in a statement: "Our nonstop flights, frequent service and international network attract business travelers, who may pay higher fares for the ability to book or change travel at the last minute, choose the most convenient flight and enjoy a superior class of service. Business travel boosts the economic development of our hub cities."
A spokeswoman for the Houston Airport System released a statement regarding Bush Intercontinental, saying, "This is a strong air service market demonstrated by the air fares being charged."
High prices put airport management in a tough spot. Airport administrators don't want to upset their biggest tenants, the large airlines, from enjoying higher prices, especially when airlines are struggling financially and need higher profits at fortress hubs to offset losses elsewhere. But at the same time, local communities pushing for cheaper air travel are offering incentives to bring in new competition.
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Podcast: Fares Can Differ Vastly Between Airports
In Cincinnati, where Delta dominates the local airport, the Chamber of Commerce has launched a task force to hire its own air-service consultant to drum up more interest among airlines.
"Our No. 1 priority is to increase air service and bring in carrier diversity,'' said Barbara Schempf, the airport's director of public and government affairs.
In Huntsville, local officials last year got a $1 million federal grant for air-service development and used it to lure AirTran Airways flights. The $1 million pays for losses AirTran may suffer on flights. The airport also waived landing fees and other operating costs and committed to spending $500,000 to advertise AirTran service.
AirTran's flights to Baltimore and Orlando, Fla., have lowered prices and stimulated more traffic, but not enough yet to get Huntsville out of the top-10 most expensive.
As major airlines have trimmed schedules amid high oil prices, they've been able to push prices higher without worrying as much about losing customers to competitors.
That's often the case in Houston, where Southwest flies from Houston's Hobby Airport with lower fares, but United often doesn't match prices out of Bush Intercontinental.
For a one-way ticket bought a few days in advance for travel this week, United's lowest fare from Bush Intercontinental to Los Angeles International Airport was $602, while Southwest's price from Hobby to LAX was $327 for travel on the same day. To Newark, United's lowest price from Bush was $772 while Southwest had seats on a non-stop flight for $387.
Passenger traffic has been shifting to Hobby as fares at Bush have risen. Through the first six months of this year, the number of domestic passengers at Bush Intercontinental dropped 1.6% compared to the same period of 2010, while domestic passengers at Hobby increased 8.6%.
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