In times of hardship and war, do airlines price gouge? That was the question top of mind as I flew from Perth to Melbourne, a 3.5- hour flight across Australia.
Grab the one-way fare on a really good day, and you’ll pay just shy of A$300. Some days, when it’s busy and in peak holiday seasons, you might have to pony up over $450.
But $900?
That was the price I paid, two days after Israel bombed Iran and started its war of choice in the Middle East.
To backtrack a moment, let me set the scene: I’m in Kruger National Park, in South Africa, when I’m notified that my flight from Johannesberg to Perth has been cancelled; the airline, South African Airways, has automatically rebooked me on the next flight, 24 hours later.
The problem arises as that international flight is bookended by two domestic flights, from tiny Skukuza airport to Jo’berg with Airlink, and then in Australia, from Perth home to Melbourne with Virgin Australia.
Unusually for me, the flights are all booked on separate tickets, owing to a business arrangement over who pays what for this work trip to Kruger, where I’m on a self-drive safari and also a stay in top-of-the-range Sabi Sabi Game Reserve (I know, please don’t cry for me).
So when one card slips, the whole house falls.
It takes a 10-minute phone call with a smiley consultant and an $80 change fee to move the Airlink flight – easy peasy.
The Virgin flight, however, is another story. The change fee of $99 I can wear. The $462 fare difference – for the same seat down the back near the toilet – is more than the original fare. Is it fair to call it extortionate? I’m going there. It’s extortionate.
Even more annoying, I thought I could perhaps blow some of my enormous pile of unused points upgrading to Premium Economy, or even slipping into the lounge, but no, my original fare of $300-ish (bought as part of a return ticket) makes me ineligible. It’s cash only, thanks. So I decline to give Virgin yet more cash.
In all, that flight touches $900. But, to add ignominy into the equation, when we do board the flight, it’s hot. Like, hot enough that the man sitting beside me, has bare arms, and sticks to me. That kind of hot.
The air-con has broken, the captain tells us, as we taxi back to the gate to sit for 30 minutes, until the engineers tell us to disembark and wait it out in the terminal. In the end, the flight takes off nearly six hours late. That means, instead of a mid-afternoon departure to arrive in Melbourne around 10pm, we take off at 10.30pm, crossing time zones to touch down at Tullamarine at 4.30am.
Gruesome, indeed.
My travel insurer has paid out the out-of-pocket expenses, less the $250 excess.
I know airlines are businesses, but at what point are they simply making hay while the sun shines, at the expense of the travelling public, who simply have little other options to get home (save a three-day train trip or 36-hour non-stop drive across the country)?
Read my flight review, published by ACM Media’s Explore Travel section, here.
