I planned a trip across the pond in August, which will be my first time back to London since 2017. I was able to use points for the trip, using 70,000 Alaska miles to book American Airways one-way, non-stop business class from LAX to LHR and 100,000 British Airways miles to book BA one-way, non-stop business class from LHR to LAX.
I decided to look at cash from London to LAX out of curiosity and wish I hadn’t. I’m finding that American Airlines, United, Virgin Atlantic, Delta, and British Airways are all charging over $12,000 for a one-way, non-stop flight from London to LAX for July and August. And while you may be thinking, “Well, it’s peak travel season” note that there’s decent award space still available and on the flights I looked out, there were a fair number of open seats.
Not only are airline charging these prices between London to LAX, but non-stop flights from London to all West Coast cities (Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, and San Diego) are all clocking in at over $12,000+ depending on the date.
Interestingly, for your West Coast to LHR one-way, non-stop flights, you’ll be paying significantly less (roughly between $2,900 to $3,100 from SFO or LAX) and roundtrip tickets from SFO start at about $3,600 (from LHR, they start at about $5,400). Roundtrip tickets from LAX range from $3,610 to over $12,000 in July and August.
While these one-way prices from London to the West Coast are absurd, it also looks like this is pretty solid evidence of price fixing. Basically, it violates antitrust laws for a business to work with its competitors to set pricing. Here, are we to believe that Virgin Atlantic, British Airways, Delta, United, and American Airlines all, on their own, looked into their own flight capacity and demand and determined that $12,000+ was the right price to charge for a one-way business class ticket? I think that’s highly unlikely (but if you know more about antitrust laws and how they apply to airlines, let me know in the comments!).
Bottom line
Airlines are charging over $12,000 to fly one-way, non-stop business class from London’s Heathrow airport to the West Coast, even though flights aren’t full and there’s award space available. If you need to fly one-way from London to the West Coast and want to fly business class, points will be your best option.
11 comments
Uh, maybe Atlantic Joint Business Agreement might ring a bell?
Correct me if I’m wrong, but the Atlantic Joint Business Agreement doesn’t include Delta, United, or Virgin Atlantic (so would not explain why they have the same prices as AA or British Airways). Antitrust issues aside, the prices being charged for a one-way business class tickets between London and LAX are absurd.
Yes. Those airlines are not part of the exemption. But US-LON is dominated by BA and AA. Further, the other members solidify that pricing power by taking off the table DUB and MAD which in a sane world should be dirt cheap alternatives.
I don’t think the agreement is good public policy exactly because it fosters the pricing behaviors you see.
Fwiw the same thing happens in other industries when you hive a large entrenched player anti trust exemption. In those situations not all players need to be partird to the exemption for market prices to tend to drift up into a high narrow range. This especially true in capacity constrained cases like airport slots.
Hope this helps
There’s a omision in your analysis in that you didn’t state the r/t cost from LHR-west coast in that the cost is under $6k. Just like it’s not really proper to calculate cpp on a one way fare, the price of one ways are very often shown as Full Fare J (or Y or F), as the discount fare buckets only apply to round trips. If one must really purchase a one way biz ticket, it often makes sense to purchase a round trip of some type, the J on the outbound and then an economy on the return as a throwaway…..
No omission — if you read the article, you’ll see that I mention r/t ticket pricing.
And yes, I am aware that it usually makes more sense to buy roundtrip, but that’s not the point of the article: it’s that airlines are charging $12k+ for a business class ticket from Europe to the West Coast (I’ve been doing this for almost a decade and have been following airfare prices for much longer and have never seen prices that high!).
Partially this is a result of overconsolidation in the U.S. airline industry. Add in joint ventures which don’t seem to serve any viable purpose that benefits the passenger and you get price fixing like this, whether through the old school mafia-style gathering or informally where the airlines can claim an insanely unlikely coincidence rather than admitting collusion and price fixing. The solution seems easy enough – charge the CEO’s of all involved airlines with Federal racketeering charges (and RICO if possible) with Federal prison time for those convicted. The reason corporations in the USA act so horrifically is that the company leaders almost never serve time when they commit egregious felonies. That must change.
To me this is slightly interesting as usually fares from Europe to US are cheaper but I also am looking at RT’s. Also LHR and LAX are weird markets for pricing I think. Summer in SoCal would be popular from London I’d think.
Why are airlines pricing one-way business class tickets this high? What’s driving the cost?
One-way tickets are often priced higher, but it’s rare for flights to be THIS high (I don’t think I’ve ever seen it). For instance, the flight I’m taking in August is priced at $13,988, but there are 7 open business class seats that you can book for either 70k Alaska miles or 100k British Airways Avios. So it’s not like these flights are anywhere near full. This is why I think it’s price collusion.
Maybe I missed it but how much were the “fuel surcharges” along with those 70,000 Alaska points?
For the Alaska flight (used Alaska miles to book AA LAX to LHR), it was $18.10 total in fees — $0 in surchargers, $12.50 partner award booking fee, and $5.50 taxes and other charges). For my BA flights back, it was 100,000 Avios + $475 in fees, though the fees weren’t broken down. I have the option to change the 100k Avios flight to paying 70k Alaska miles with $881 in fees, and am considering doing that but will likely stick with BA as, even after this booking, I still have 190k Avios.