Cheap Flights to New York, What to look for..

According to the Civil Aviation Authority during 2008, just over 4 million people flew from a London Airport to New York. They departed from four different airports (Heathrow, Gatwick, Luton and Stansted) and flew to JFK and Newark airports in the US. It is one of the busiest international routes in the world and forms a major link between Europe and North America.

So, if just over 4 Million people actually flew the route, then it follows that airlines provided seats for many more than 4 Million and that’s equates to over 11,000 seats each and every day of the year. If you take an average British Airways Boeing 747-400 as capable of carrying 299 passengers in First, Club and Business then you get at least 36 flights a day, or one every 40 minutes around the clock.

With that enormous number of flights available, you would think that it would be easy to find a cheap flight, within your budget and when you want it, but the vagaries of the airline industry make it impossible to ever know if you got the best deal available. So what should you look for?

Two trends have combined to change the process of booking a flight dramatically:
(1) On-line Booking Engines show the cheapest flights at the top of the price/availability flight display
(2) In the ever tightening, post-credit crunch economy people will increasingly swap more research time for a better-informed decision.

So you now get three categories of on-line flight bookers:
(1) Lazy Bookers, who check one possibly two sites; probably one airline and one on-line agency site (A) look at the obvious options and book the best that is immediately available. This usually leads to a direct (B), non-stop (C) flight on a national carrier, say British Airways or American Airlines, leaving from the primary airport in the UK (Heathrow) and flying to the primary airport in New York (JFK).
(2) Canny Bookers, who check probably four or five sites, (two airlines, two on-line agencies and one flight comparison site (D) and book the best that their research reveals. This is most likely to be again on a non-stop flight but possibly with a lesser known US or UK carrier (Virgin not BA, Delta not American) and possibly either from or into on one the secondary airports (Gatwick or Newark rather than Heathrow or JFK).
(3) Informed Bookers, who check not just the obvious flight booking sites, but also research which airlines fly the route before starting their quest for the best. These people start with the airport web sites, in the case of London (Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted and Luton Airports .com) which quickly reveals who flies where. Then they progress to the airline own sites; plus at least three on-line agencies and two price comparison sites, also probably using Google news to check if any new have announced any plans to fly the route recently. This is likely to lead to an alternative choice, still direct and non-stop but with a unlikely carrier, for example, Air India, Kuwait Airways who both fly directly from Heathrow to New York or even more likely with a carrier which has a direct flight, but stops en route, for example Icelandair who fly Heathrow to JKF via Iceland or low cost competitor Iceland Express who have recently launched Gatwick to Newark also via Iceland or even more likely on an airline, say United Airlines, with a non-direct flight including an intermediate stop in Washington, but the same airline for both the transatlantic and domestic legs. It is clear that the power of the consumer is growing as choices become more transparent but even canny bookers can make better choices with a better understanding of how the market works.

This article is written to help provide a little more understanding and hopefully can lead to better choices and cheaper flights.

Definitions:
(A) On line agency site: a site where the booking process is transacted by the agency operating the site. (E.g. Alternative Airlines)
(B) Direct Flights: where the passenger remains on the same aircraft throughout the journey but the aircraft may have one or more stops en-route.
(C) Non-stop: where there are no intermediary stops for either aircraft or passenger en route.
(D) Flight Comparison Site: (e.g. Skyscanner.net) where the purchaser is transferred to the airline or an on-line agency site (see A) to make the booking having looked initially at the selection chosen by the Flight Comparison site. (Note some flight comparison sites give preference to those airlines and agencies which pay for preferential positions or labelling rather than offering an unbiased selection)

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