[Porsche-O-Phile]

There is no logic to airline pricing whatsoever. Absolutely none. It has been this way for a long time. Hell, I had an undergraduate course in airline operations years ago which got into various aspects including Part 121 certification, equipment procurement and leasing options, terminal lease agreements, labor negotiations, maintenance issues, etc. Despite all this when the subject of pricing came up, the professor (who was a very bright guy and ALWAYS had the answers, along with something like 50 years in the industry as a consultant) just shrugged and told us "don't try to understand it - even the airlines themselves don't". Very curious.

After years of flying and time spent in/around that industry myself, I have to agree. There is no overriding consistent logic and fares are very case-by-case. The logic used to come up with them varies wildly by route, time of day, date, equipment type, competitiveness on a given route segment with other carriers, projected fuel prices, economic climate, etc. It's a mess. Some "newer" carriers have tried to improve on this model in recent years with some success but in general, pricing within the industry is maddeningly random and inconsistent.

Pretty much the only thing industry experts agree on is that fares are unsustainable at current rates and they absolutely WILL need to go up - and pretty dramatically - in the near future if the airlines are going to survive long term. We will likely see several major carriers folding or being assimilated before this happens though, at least that's the consensus I hear.

I have to agree - I hate commercial flying now. It's worse than riding the bus. Given half a choice I'd prefer to rent a plane and fly myself although it's getting prohibitively expensive to do that and obviously it's impractical to do for a very long flight (like coast-to-coast). It still is an option for local/regional flights though (e.g. Boston to NY or PA or DC). It's a bit more expensive, but I enjoy it, I get to log the time and stay current, and best of all I'm not beholden to the airline schedules, the TSA and their B.S. I don't get to do it nearly often as I'd like though. I just don't have the need to travel more than once every couple of months.