October 8, 2008, 4:14 pm
Air France Ends an ‘Open Skies’ Experiment
Posted by Scott McCartney

Air France is dropping its Los Angeles-London non-stop flight, taking with it some of the cheapest tickets available to London.

It’s rare for airlines to fly internationally without at least beginning or ending the flight at one of their hub airports. You usually need connecting passengers to fill big jets. But Los Angeles-London was an experiment for Air France, a trip the airline inaugurated with the passage of the Open Skies treaty between the U.S. and the European Union. Air France flies from Los Angeles to Paris, and decided to see if Los Angeles and London were big enough markets to support a once-a-day trip.

But there’s tough competition on this route from British Airways, Virgin Atlantic and American Airlines, all carriers with bigger bases of frequent flier program members and corporations with travel deals in either city. (Some cynically saw the flight as retaliation by Air France against British Airways for launching its Open Skies treaty experiment, the airline it calls “Open Skies,” from Paris.)

Just look at prices for a trip next week to see how poorly Air France is faring.

For a one-week trip leaving Monday, Air France offers a coach price of $954 including taxes and fees, according to Orbitz.com. That’s cheaper than flights from New York to London on the same dates, even though Los Angeles is obviously a longer trip. And it’s a whole lot cheaper than an Air France ticket from Los Angeles to Paris on the same dates: $2,897. Other airlines seem able to ignore Air France, too, in the Los Angeles-London market. British Airways’ cheapest Los Angeles-London fare for the same dates was $3,102, according to Orbitz.

(Travel tip: If you’re going to Paris from Los Angeles anytime soon, take the London flight and book a Chunnel ticket - you’ll save big bucks. Heck, if you’re going to London from just about anywhere in the U.S., think about going to LA and using the cheap Air France fare to get you across the Atlantic.)

The lack of passengers means Air France is surrendering and shifting the flight in its winter schedule to New York-London, where it will offer one daily non-stop.

(The L.A.-London flight will halt on Nov. 6. And the London-JFK route is expected to start in the summer of 2009.)

Its SkyTeam partner, Delta Air Lines, has two flights a day. New York-London is one of the most competitive markets in the world, with multiple major players and often competitive fares. It’s still an experiment for Air France to see whether a French airline can build enough traffic in the U.S. and U.K. without a hub.

With the move, pricing will become rational again. Los Angeles-London tickets will actually be more expensive than New York-London. At least until another airline starts experimenting