What is the miles-per-gallon equivalent for flying?
Everyone thinks about miles per gallon for cars, but why don’t we use a similar kind of value equation for consumer air travel?
We’re more likely to talk about cheap travel destinations, but that’s a one-dimensional view because it doesn’t account for distance.
Here at FCF, we call flights that take you far away for a relatively low cost, value flights.
When are you going to care about a value flight?
What if your spouse or friend or your kids want to go to Disneyland, but you could also go to some exotic historical place halfway around the world – like Africa, Asia, or Europe – for little or no more cost?
Time for negotiation. I’m not saying you’ll always win this battle, but it’s worth considering. “Hey, why don’t we go to Disneyland next year when Kevin is big enough to ride on Space Mountain. Because there’s a deal to Asia / Brazil / Europe / Hawaii right now that will be just as exciting.”
Misconceptions and Myths
This story originates from something that’s been driving me crazy: high transcontinental fares. I travel that route a lot so it’s close to my heart (and wallet). As the ancient Stoics used to say, the obstacle is the way. These high prices have opened my mind to a different way of thinking. I mean, if you can get to Los Angeles and London from New York for a similar price, then why not be open to putting London on the list, or Paris, or Nairobi?
Which brings me to some common myths and misconceptions about travel. A major one I hear all the time is that if it’s far away, then it must be expensive. Dubai, Johannesburg, Argentina? That’s halfway around the world – it must cost a fortune to get there. Well, not necessarily. We’ve seen fares in the mid-$2,000s round-trip even in the last couple of months that were almost the same price as a Los Angeles-New York round-trip.
So, a mental note for travelers: Don’t assume a faraway place must have an up-and-away price. Get your calculator out instead. Oh by the way… I’ve heard Disneyland hotels can cost a fortune, too, so that’s some food for thought.
If you fly the transcon, which is about 4,950 miles round-trip, it typically costs around $2,500 in Business Class nowadays. That’s about 2 flight miles for every dollar.
There are several ways you could calculate this, but for convenience we decided to take the distance in a straight line as the crow flies and divide that by the cost in dollars to come up with the flight miles per dollar.
New York to London round-trip is 6,940 flight miles and often at a similar price to the transcon — or lower when flash fares hit (making the cost about 3.1 flight miles for every dollar). So value flights are where you get to go the farthest for the cheapest. In other words, there’s miles per gallon and there’s flight miles per dollar.
The tables below show more value flight examples. Check out San Francisco-Johannesburg for a whopping 6 miles per dollar. Not a bad return to get you on that bucket list safari. Or have you ever been to Bali? That can be as low as 5.1 miles per dollar of value from many cities should you put it onto your radar.
And when you’re considering value flights, London and Frankfurt rise-up to be noticed. Unleash some of your inner Vlad the Impaler and check out this Romanian capital city at 5 miles to the dollar in some cases.
Here’s the value-per-flight-miles math:
Examples of High-Value Business Class Flights
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Examples of Lower-Value Business Class Flights
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So isn’t it time to rethink the value of your air travel according to flight miles per dollar? You just might find that your far away fantasy destination is more affordable than you thought.