Canadians save big flying out of U.S. border airports

We're on Vancouver Island and flew out of Bellingham, Washington State to Las Vegas at Christmas. We paid $290 CAN for both of us return flight. Also, while in Bellingham I picked up a bush guard for my SUV, groceries, liquor, motor oil, and clothes at the outlet mall. Saved $400 on the bush guard and at least another 300 - 400 on the rest of the items. I believe in buying local but not when it's money out of my pocket. In the next year, we plan on buying a motorcycle and motorhome in the US. So glad we live close to the US border.

Flying out of the US or on an American carrier is so much cheaper than flying on a Canadian airline. My family and I took a vacation to Cancun, and even with the baggage fee, we saved $400 each to fly with Continental. The only time I fly on a Canadian carrier is if I have to travel within Canada because there are no other alternatives.

I guess I need to live closer to the border. To bad that this doesnt help our ever increasing costs.
Wonder where all those employees will go when everyone does this? EI premiums are sure to go up as less and less are employed. The good news is maybe they can all get jobs in the States.

We are about 1.5 hours from BUffalo airport. We are constantly flying from there even though we have a long drive.

THe flights are generally 50% less then flying from Toronto. When you have 3 people flying it makes a huge difference.

Besides that the airlines in the US compete and therefore have fantastic deals. The canadian airlines are a monopoly so price is not so much an issue.

We luv flying from Buffalo.

We are 7 hrs north of Great Falls, MT. I sent my wife and 2 daughters to Germany for half of what it would have cost out of Calgary. The security at the airport was also more relaxed as well. Even though it was a long drive it was well worth it.

Similar story here. We live in Toronto and use Buffalo as our departure airport all the time. Latest was paying $272 US per person to fly to Los Angeles, while the cost from Toronto would have been $800 Cdn person. Yes, I did check flying from Toronto first, because I would love to give the Canadian airlines the business, but they don't seem to want it that bad.

I love flying out of Buffalo. Save huge on the flight, not to mention the savings on alcohol at the duty free coming home. The reason our airlines can not compete is because of the huge taxes our government charges. Isn't it nice that our own government is driving us over the border to spend our Canadian earned dollars. I would gladly fly out of Canada, even if it was a little more money, but the cost difference is not even close.

I cannot understand how pricing in Canada works for flights.

For example, to fly to London-Heathrow out of Vancouver you're looking at about $900-1700 for a flight at AirCanada.

Now, fly out of Seattle to London-Heathrow and you're looking at more $500-$1000 using Air Canada. The funny thing? The flight from Seattle goes up into Vancouver and then takes the same flight if you were booking straight from Vancouver yet is mountains of money cheaper. So you travel more (expending more gas, more pilot time, more supplies on part of the company) but pay less.

Living in NB, it's insane... We fly out of Bangor and sometimes drive down to Boston to fly into the US. Recently a group of 6 of us flew to St-Louis and it cost us $259 Cd each compared if we would have flown from Moncton $450 or Halifax $375. Driving 7 hours to Boston to catch the flight and saving over $1100 was well worth it.

I live in Vancouver, and recently went to San Francisco. It cost me $165 US return as oppsed to $620 return if I flew out of YVR. The US has a much larger population that can allow multiple air carriers to compete for your business, while in Canada, we take what we're given.

Saved over $500 flying out of Buffalo to Texas. Compare flight cancellation insurance also, it's a fraction of CDN prices

Does this make sense? When I started looking at prices to fly to Vancouver in the spring of 2008 I was astounded at the cost. Living close to Detroit I decided to check out flying into Seattle and then driving to Vancouver. The cost was 50% less. While researching flights I noticed Air Canada also flew out of Detroit. Detroit to Vancouver was going to be $300 less than flying Toronto to Vancouver. Here's the oddity!! Air Canada out of Detroit stopped in Toronto before continuing on to Vancouver.

I have been flying out of the Buffalo Airport for the last 15 years now very often each month for business and pleasure. I have often inquired to find that a very large number of Canadian passengers from as close as Etobicoke and 5 minutes from Pearson airport use Buffalo.
During the last five years or so I have noticed an incredible increase in Canadians (it's no longer a great secret)
The Toronto Airport is cumbersome, confusing, but according to a USA Today article last year it's the MOST EXPENSIVE IN THE WORLD for the airlines. Their landing fees are the top, that contributes to the cost as well as the Political MONOPOLY that exists, US airlines are open to all competition and while in fairness their market is potentially 10 times our size, the price difference is politically driven. I do not feel sorry for Pearson Airport, they have known this revenue has been going south for years and do nothing to try to change it, as is the Canadian Gov't responsible for the tight reign Air Canada has on the other competition.
Parking in Buffalo Airport Lot "B" just cost me $40.00 for 7 1/2 days. Try that at the Toronto airport.

Hmmm.. interesting.. so many people.. so many similar stories. For me.. living basically in the middle between Toronto and Detroit.. I immediately check the local airports.. London, Hamilton, Toronto. Then I check for the US airports.. in the back of my mind knowing they will be more reasonable. I check Detroit, Flint, Buffalo. I have never found a more reasonable flight from one of the Canadian airports. I understand the smaller airports are more convenient and of course I might have to pay a premium. However, I usually fly about 10 times in a year and it always amazes me to look at the fare.. then the taxes and fees that are added on to it in Canada. I recently flew from Detroit to Los Angeles.. the fair was $295 including taxes, in Canadian funds. I tried searching for flights from Toronto.. even willing to be very flexible on the days.. but could not come up with a flight for less than $750. I'm very much a supporter of Canadian enterprise and at times feel somewhat guilty.. however.. when looking at it from a financial standpoint.. especially when times are tough.. how can I justify spending that much more money just to be supportive of the Canadian air industry. I can't.. that extra money saved can be used for spending money.. and potentially means that the trip is viable, for if I depended on using the Canadian airlines and airports.. I may not have been able to travel as far or as often.

we live in hamilton,ontario. we recently travelled to the mayan riviera.we flew from detroit with a stop in miami and returning a stop in dallas.to fly from toronto would have been non-stop.from toronto it would cost the 4 of us $4,600 cdn for one week.from detroit, after driving there,spending 2 nights(1 before,1 after)at a hotel which included leaving my vehicle there for the week and shuttle to airport we saved $1,400 cdn. it was well worth the drive to detroit. like anything else you have to research your trip.we are closer to buffalo but its not always cheaper from there.last march we flew to orlando from columbus ohio for one week,it was cheaper by $600 u.s.than leaving from detroit and $1100u.s. cheaper than leaving from buffalo.if you dont mind a little driving to save money check out some of the smaller airports like cleveland,columbus or harrissburg,penn.

I live an hour from Montreal, but rather than getting stuck in traffic on my way to Trudeau airport, as well as having to pay higher taxes to fly out of Canada, I have been travelling to Burlington, Vermont and flying from there when my wife and I travel to Florida.
The hour drive to Burlington is scenic, the stop at the border in and out of the U.S. averages less than two minutes and I can get a direct flight to Florida with Jet Blue that usually costs a minimum of $300.00 less for my wife and myself, than it would be to fly out of Montreal.
The extra money we pay to fly out of Canada is a joke. I recently looked at an $89.00 seat sale with Westjet from Montreal to Orlando, but rather than looking at a round trip flight, I thought I would look at the cost to book one way for each direction. It would have cost me $120.00 extra to fly from Montreal to Orlando one way, than it was going to cost to fly from Orlando to Montreal one way. Why? Taxes, taxes, taxes!!
I love the ease of getting in and out of the Burlington airport, but the only drawback is the parking fees, which granted are the same as other airports. That is one thing the Plattsburgh, New York airport has an advantage with. They currently have free parking, which is an advantage if you are going to be away for awhile.
Either way, I'm still going to cross the border whenever I need to take a flight!

I love in London, Ont. and we have our own international airport here about 5 minutes from my house with new direct flights to Chicago & Boston. We are going to Chciago next weekend and we managed to get our flight AND hotel in downtown Chicago for $100 less than just the flights out of London....and it was $200 cheaper than flying out of Toronto.

It really is unfortunate because I would love to fly local and keep the business here, but I can't afford to pay hundreds of dollars extra just for convenience sake. I will drive the 2 hours to save that extra money to use as my trip spending money.

We have done this many times with other trips to California, Las Vegas & Boston. The only time I have flown in Canada was domestic flights and to Cuba....both of which I got great deals on and would do again!

We just did the same thing. We flew out of Bangor, Maine on Allegiant Air. Even with the bag fees, we saved big time. It was going to be around $1800/person return out of Saint John to Florida which is more than 3 times the amount out of Bangor.

There are two posts above (@7:05am and @8:30am) inquiring about how "odd" it is that an Air Canada flight from a U.S. city to a Canadian or International city (via Canada) is much cheaper than flying from point-to-point. The extra costs associated with an additional leg (i.e. crew salaries, meals, aircraft wear and tear, etc.) should drive the price up, not down, according to these individuals. I agree.

However, the fare charged has nothing to do with the extra costs of operating an additional flight. It comes down to simple economics: supply and demand. For example, if it costs AC $50 per passenger to fly from Seattle (SEA) to Vancouver (YVR) and $200 from Vancouver to London, UK (LHR); theoretically the fare should be $250 (plus taxes) from SEA - YVR - LHR and $200 from YVR - LHR.

However, the demand for YVR - LHR is so great (and supply so low) that it makes a lot of sense for Air Canada to price that route at a premium, for example $500 (plus taxes). Those willing to pay it will do so. However, out of SEA, there are more options to LHR (supply is greater), so demand is lower. Air Canada's break-even point is $250 out of SEA, as described in my scenario above. So, if it charges $251 (plus taxes), it is making a $1 profit, just as it would make a $1 profit if it charged $201 (plus taxes) out of YVR.

The difference is that if people are willing to pay more to fly out of YVR, why not charge $500+, whereas from SEA, not many are willing to pay more than $251 or whatever the market rate happens to be. The logical follow-up to this is: "Well, if Air Canada is making such a high margin flying out of YVR, why even sell tickets from SEA that only make a $1 margin? Why not focus all resources and energy towards selling tickets from just YVR - LHR?" Simple, Air Canada doesn't have a large enough market share (neither is there enough demand) from YVR alone to fill 350 seats on a plane to LHR. If it can fill 300 seats at a $250 profit per seat from YVR - LHR, why let the extra 50 seats go empty when you can make a $1 profit per seat for SEA - YVR - LHR?

Hopefully this clarifies the issue for other readers. Please realize that the $$ values I have used are examples only. In addition, a $1 profit margin is too small to quantify, but I used it for illustrative purposes only. It is unlikely that AC would even bother operating a route if the margin was only $1.

I, too, was curious when I first discovered this anomaly of point-to-point versus point-to-point-to-point, but plenty of questions and a bit of research later, I am satisfied that this is the case. I will post two more threads in the coming hours to address airline taxes and last-minute deals for those who are interested.

Recently flew to San Francisco from Seattle instead of Vancouver. Got a return flight for $165 Cdn which included rental of a mid size car for 3 days. So add $35 for gas driving down, that's around $200. Try that from Vancouver. Minimum was $500 I could find including the car rental.