27 Sep The YHZ-YQY ripoff — it still doesn’t add up

Contrarian’s aviation guru, Adrian Noskwith, thinks the Porter Airlines 50%-off sale may have played a role in the weird pricing I encountered flying from Toronto to Sydney (as Joe MacKay argued), but it’s not the whole story.

Airline pricing is a weird science at the best of times. When Porter is whipping Air Canada’s ass out of Toronto Island, as they are at the moment, this drives airline pricing executives to do even weirder things.

But why is it consistently cheaper to fly from Sydney to St. Johns (via Halifax) than from Sydney to Halifax?

To check this claim, I priced one-way Air Canada tickets for a week from today.

From Sydney to Halifax:

From Sydney to St. John’s via Halifax:

Cheapest Sydney to Halifax fare: $259. Cheapest Sydney to Halifax to St. John’s fare: $149. What a deal: Travel almost four times as far (1180 total km. v. 303 km.) and pay 40 percent less.

Is it too much to ask Air Canada to explain why Canada’s national airline continues to gouge Cape Bretoners flying to Halifax? Just Email an explanation, dear Air Canada brass.