Why are fifth freedom flights more often discounted than regular flights?

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Accepted answer

Airlines offering these fares operate outside their "normal" market and into a foreign market in which they typically have very little market share or assets. Also the flights are typically paid for and put forth in light of the main itinerary, not the sub itineraries. One can consider any revenue captured on sub itineraries gravy. As such they have very little to lose in being aggressive on these sub itineraries, and their competitors on these sub itineraries (who may have to sustain the economic viability of the flight in its entirety) are more challenged to respond or retaliate. Note that I base my statements on my experience of economics applied to travel, but not on direct insider knowledge from airlines pricing desks.

Upvote:1

The main reason is that not all passengers will remain in the plane for the whole "way", and there would be to many empty seats.

For example Singapore to Houston with Singapore Airlines, this is routed with a short stop via Manchester. Manchester Houston is considered as a 5th freedom route, people in that plane could have bought a ticket from Singapore to Manchester only and leaving the plane in Manchester, or they could stay in the plane from Singapore to Houston with the short stop in Manchester.

But not all those 5th freedom routes are often, or more often, discounted as other routes. It all depends on the empty seats...

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