Strangely expensive airfares to Dubai

8 replies

mspcooper

Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer

Member since 09 May 2013

Total posts 457

I'm planning to go to Dubai to attend a conference in May. All flights to Dubai are more expensive (from BNE) compared to going anywhere in Europe.

BNE-AMS is lower $6K, however BNE-DXB is high $6k. Even economy is priced higher to go to Dubai. Can someone please explain?

henrus

Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer

Member since 23 Oct 2013

Total posts 765

Captive audience.


You can travel multiple airlines to Europe (SQ, EK, CX, EY, BR, KE and TG just to name a few) but only one airline flys to Dubai direct from Brisbane and EK know that people like yourself are looking to book flights to Dubai only and are willing to pay the premium to fly direct.

If you fly via Asia on TG, SQ or CX you can often get it for half the price of EK (in Business) but it's up for you to decide if an extra 10-15 hours travel time is worth the savings.

Something which I've done in the past is fly Etihad into Abu Dhabi and then taken the free business class car to Dubai (but I would not do this again) as you've just got off a 15 hour flight and now have to spend another hour in a car.

mspcooper

Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer

Member since 09 May 2013

Total posts 457

Etihad is the same, costs more to go to AUH than to Europe. I have asked Centurion to come up with meaningful, otherwise I will go to Switzerland (where I have never been), spend 3-4 days sightseeing and come back to Dubai for the conference and make it worthwhile !?!

Mightyreds

Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer

Member since 09 Feb 2015

Total posts 72

The option of going to Switzerland is a good option even if you find a better deal going to Dubai direct. It's a great place to visit.

cdirnber

Member since 23 May 2012

Total posts 38

Had a similar experience: PER-DXB-PER on EK/QF: $1763.   PER-DXB-MUC-TXL-MUC-DXB-PER: $1901 on EK/QF (i.e. only about $140 more for Dubai-Berlin-Dubai).  Amazing what competition can do!

Packetman21

Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer

Member since 28 Jul 2016

Total posts 68

Wow, how odd!

Doubleplatinum Banned

Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer Platinum

Member since 07 Feb 2013

Total posts 431

Standard operating procedure on monopoly routes, nothing strange about it!

flychrisfly

Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer

Member since 09 Jun 2011

Total posts 40

Just did a skyscanner search for J flights in April, and complete trips with a duration of less than 21 hours were cheapest on Emirates. Suspect it's a function of supply and demand where supply is limited by the (air services?) agreement between UAE and Australia that limits the number of PAX between the 2 countries (not including transit pax.) 

btaus

Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer

Member since 15 Dec 2016

Total posts 171

The problem is, if you fly SQ, TG, CX, QR, etc. to DXB, you'll using Terminal 1 Concourse D instead of state-of-the-art Terminal 3 Concourse A/B/C which is exclusive to Emirates and Qantas A380 to LHR.

My friend said Concourse D is terrible, despite the fact it's only opened in February 2016, not even comparable to days when Concourse C was used by Terminal 1 (Now Terminal 3).

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