RENEE MONTAGNE, Host:
Good morning.
SCOTT MCCARTNEY: Good morning, Renee.
MONTAGNE: How big can the price difference be depending on where you fly out of?
MCCARTNEY: It can be huge. You could end up paying twice as much per mile out of some cities as other cities. Cincinnati was the most expensive city we found. On a per mile basis, you can pay twice as much - you do pay twice as much on average than if you fly out of the Oakland Airport. Pittsburgh was 70 percent cheaper than Cincinnati. Memphis, Tennessee - 38 percent more expensive than Nashville, Tennessee. And even in the New York area, there was disparity. Newark - the Newark Airport was 18 percent more expensive than LaGuardia.
MONTAGNE: So what actually, though, in the end does account for this disparity?
MCCARTNEY: You would think that an airplane - everything would depend on distance. But the biggest determinant of prices in an airline market is whether there's a discount airline there that forces other airlines to match prices and offer low prices.
MONTAGNE: Once one finds about this and figures it'd be cheaper if I go out of another airport - you know, how realistic is it to do that? You're in Cincinnati - is it worth it to try and avoid going out of Cincinnati?
MCCARTNEY: Many people do. The Dayton, Ohio Airport has low cost competition. A lot of people drive to Dayton. There are about four airports surrounding Cincinnati that are trying to capitalize on this and say come here because we have cheaper prices.
MONTAGNE: Is there any way to pressure an airport to bring in discount airlines?
MCCARTNEY: Charleston, South Carolina has done the same thing. They're paying marketing cost to get AirTran in there. So AirTran puts in a couple of flights to Atlanta. That connects to many other cities. And so you end up with lots of low-fare competition in the computer reservations systems that everybody else who flies to Charleston has to match.
MONTAGNE: But the community - Charleston, for instance, wanted more tourists. Did it in fact pressure its airport to try and bring in these discounted airlines?
MCCARTNEY: That's right. It was a community-wide effort with the Convention Visitors Bureau, the local governments, the airport. And a major economic issue for a tourist destination like Charleston, if airfare are high, that's going to affect the hotels and the restaurants and everybody else. So having low airfares was a critical economic issue for the community.
MONTAGNE: Thanks very much for joining us.
MCCARTNEY: Good to be with you.