I know we've had discussions in this thread before about the possibility of driving to U.S. airports in Montana to get a better deal (usually to Vegas, on Allegiant).
I recently made an attempt to try and quantify how much cheaper a flight out of Montana would need to be than from Calgary to be worth the drive. This includes factors such as:
- extra fuel costs (how fuel efficient is your vehicle?)
- baggage costs
- parking your vehicle at the airport
- cost of hotel if it requires an overnight stay
- extra vehicle depreciation (if you believe in this)
and most importantly (and perhaps most often overlooked)
- how much your time is worth
http://www.yycdeals.com/the-official...m-calgary-area
^^^ That blog post also contains a link to a spreadsheet that you can use to compare the costs of flying out of YYC vs an airport in Montana, and an example of the variables I used to draw my conclusion.
The conclusion:
Quote:
There are cities in Canada where it can make sense to drive across the border to catch a flight for a cheaper holiday. Unfortunately, I don't think Calgary is one of them. The 5 hour drive each way is the most prohibitive factor. To make any sense at all for a person to do it, I think at *least* one or more of the following would have to be true:
- you live far south of Calgary, with a shorter drive to one of Montana's airports. From Lethbridge for example, it's only about a half hour more to drive to GTF than to drive to YYC. This results in the flight from Great Falls only needing to be $50 less than the flight from Calgary to break even. Big difference.
- you don't value your time as being worth much. Or you consider the drive to Montana as having added value (perhaps as part of a golf or shopping trip)
- you have a minimum of 4 people in the car.
- the flight cost is at least $500/person cheaper than flying from Calgary. This is possible, but with Las Vegas or Phoenix being the most likely suspects for an extremely cheap flight out of Montana, and it being fairly common to see flights to Phoenix or Vegas in the $400-$500 roundtrip after taxes range from YYC, the flight from Montana would need to be practically free (or the airline paying you to fly) in most cases.
|