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The Wall Street Journal published an article May 8, 2019 titled "Flying Coast-to-Coast Nonstop Has Rarely Been Cheaper." Part of the article is quoted below.

Flying coast-to-coast nonstop has rarely been cheaper. Airlines are embroiled in a fare war, with the number of seats on transcontinental routes at an all-time high.

The rest of the article is basically examples of low fare rates and doesn't support the quoted claim.

  1. Have non-stop transcontinental (US) flights "rarely been cheaper"?

  2. Are the number of seats on transcontinental (US) routes "at an all-time high"?

Note: The title is neither of the questions I asked. It was chosen for convenience. Feel free to edit.

Barry Harrison
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  • The last claim is probably trivially true in most parts of the world, i.e. most air routes. (I mean ignoring/adjusting for seasonal variations.) – Fizz May 18 '19 at 02:47
  • see https://airlines.iata.org/news/passenger-load-factor-hits-28-year-high – Fizz May 18 '19 at 02:55
  • @Fizz Yes, that's true. And you found a great source! I didn't want a trivial question so I included the first part. I included the second part because, why not? Should I remove it? I think that people who come here from search engines would be interested in it. – Barry Harrison May 18 '19 at 03:24
  • Regarding first question, I want to say "no" based on playing around with https://www.transtats.bts.gov/AIRFARES/ – Barry Harrison May 18 '19 at 03:29
  • The IATA article does not discuss coast-to-coast flights, which is the center of the question. Further, claim #2 seems incorrectly stated. Perhaps the claim is there are more *empty* seats, driving down prices? Anyway, since the question concerns NY-LA flights, it is pretty narrow and irrelevant to people who don't travel that route. – Aleksandr Dubinsky May 21 '19 at 11:38
  • @AleksandrDubinsky Interesting! I haven’t considered *empty* seats. This would make sense and may very well be true. I feel coast-to-coast is broader than just NY-LA. – Barry Harrison May 29 '19 at 04:12

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