Pricey N.Y. flights pose many questions

The so-called "Saturday stay-over" is more habit than horror for airline passengers eager for the discounted fares that accompany weekend or longer travel plans. Not many complain about an extra night in a distant or exotic locale when it saves hundreds on airline tickets.

But what happens when you don't have that flexibility?

Sometimes, last-minute travel plans necessitate a nonstop flight without opportunity for a weekend stay. And pity the poor business traveler, off to New York today, obligated to return tomorrow.

Case in point:

Pittsburgh has three airlines offering 22 daily nonstop flights to metropolitan New York: US Airways to LaGuardia and Newark; Delta to JFK; and Continental to Newark. Even with a month's planning for a Monday-Tuesday trip in March, the cash register lit up like the Vegas Strip. There were no bargains to be found.

The lowest nonstop round-trip fare on Delta, according to Orbitz.com, was $568. The other two carriers wanted $837 for weekday round-trip flights to the other New York area airports. Checks on subsequent days showed price fluctuations (to just below $800 or just over $900), but nothing that would have worked wonders for the wallet.

By comparison, someone with the ability to tack a Saturday on the front end of the trip would have found fares of $304 on all three airlines. And if they'd waited until the last minute and booked an e-saver fare, round-trip tickets were just $188.

So, who can explain the logic behind this pricing strategy?

Maybe the airlines, but US Airways isn't commenting.

One industry analyst has a theory: It's lack of competition, pure and simple, says Mike Boyd, who analyzes airlines and airports for the Boyd Group in Evergreen, Colo.

"Both Delta and Continental are interested only in serving their international connections in Newark and JFK from Pittsburgh. They're not too excited about travelers just going to New York. That leaves US Airways to charge whatever it wants."

By skipping the nonstop options, passengers can find lower fares. But Pittsburgh International still has 77 nonstop destinations, and some people are beholden to schedules. In those cases, paying premium rates for that convenience makes sense.

But paying a king's ransom may not. The dilemma for passengers is with the markup, which can approach 300 percent.

"These nonstop fares from Pittsburgh have gotten absurd," says Daniel Nagin, a professor in Carnegie Mellon University's Heinz School and a frequent traveler to destinations both domestic and foreign.

"I was invited to attend a midweek meeting in Baltimore and thought about flying until I saw it was going to cost nearly $800. That's so much more than it used to be. There's no way I'd ask my hosts to pay that much. I guess I'll be driving more places."

The fare charts are brimming with horror stories.

Round-trip flights to Washington/Dulles can be had for less than $175 on United and Independence, but flying from Pittsburgh to Washington Reagan costs $863, while round trips to Albany start at a mind-boggling $1,097. A quick trip to a Boston tea party will set you back even more -- $1,123.

All of this at a time when the airlines have advertised round-trip flights to Europe for less than $500.

Flying nonstop during the week to New York from a selection of cities other than Pittsburgh brings even more budget-busting news.

Using the same booking criteria for flights offered from Pittsburgh at $870, it's possible to find nonstop flights from Cleveland to New York on two airlines for $413; from Columbus for $328; and from Detroit for $219.

Pull out a map and you'll see that each of those cities is a longer flight, meaning more airtime and greater fuel costs.

The disparity isn't easily explained, but it seems to be tolerated.

The Travel Insider, an online newsletter, boils it down to the old mantra of paying what the market will bear: "A person who needs to buy an airline ticket for urgent travel today or tomorrow is probably willing to pay just about any amount of money for the ticket."

Clearly, the airlines are milking that mantra for all it's worth.

Bargain-hunters have their work cut out for them. For example, travelers from Charleston, W. Va., can't fly nonstop to New York, but they can get there for $355 on US Airways. Yet, making a connection in Pittsburgh onto the same flight would cost $850.

US Airways offers a $328, one-connection fare from Akron to New York, via Philadelphia. And AirTran operates three nonstop flights a day from Akron to LaGuardia for as little as $208 round trip.

When money is tight, a drive to Akron is an option.

Still, it represents an inconvenience for local travelers and a blow to Pittsburgh International traffic statistics. It also raises the same old questions and a couple of new ones:

* Landing fees at Pittsburgh International may be a few dollars more than other airports, but does that explain a $400 or $500 difference in fares?

* If an airline can fly someone for $188 on a trip that involves a Saturday night stay, what justification is there for charging $850 for the same trip that takes place from Sunday through Saturday afternoon?

* How can it cost less for an airline to route passengers on two connecting flights to a primary destination (including transferring their luggage) than flying them directly to their final destination?

* Why doesn't competition result in better fare shopping?

* Where's the advantage in early booking?

One other ominous question has even bigger ramifications for this city: Why center your business in Pittsburgh if it's going to cost you two to three times as much to fly somewhere else?

"It's a real problem," says Boyd. "Pittsburgh has suffered high fares for years, but it also had the advantage of plenty of direct flights to many destinations.

"You've lost the destinations but not the high fares. And what will happen if US Airways stops flying altogether?"

That, too, is a good question.

Perhaps the situation will change now that Southwest Airlines has begun operations out of Pittsburgh. Its presence has brought about lower fares elsewhere, and US Airways already is matching Southwest's introductory $58 round-trip fares to Chicago and Philadelphia.

But the airline began its Pittsburgh service with just four destinations, and it may be some time -- if ever -- before the fare-lowering "Southwest effect" takes root here. Besides, Southwest doesn't offer service to any of New York's three primary airports, serving only Islip Airport on Long Island.

So, for now, Pittsburgh's weekday travelers are stuck sifting through various options that either have high price tags or extract a high price on personal schedules.

In other words, they've got themselves a textbook dilemma.