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| Above, Shibuya Station. Photo by Armand Vaquer. |
Labor Day weekend is generally considered to be the end of the summer vacation season, and that's when airfares are supposed to start to drop in price.
I was perusing the Los Angeles Times Travel section (September 16) for what they consider to be the lowest airfares to Tokyo, Japan (Narita Airport or NRT) . Well, if their search results for the lowest airfares are any indication, fares haven't begun to drop. Then again, I don't have much faith in the Times's research.
The Times checks airfares on Thursdays, the day before the Travel section goes to press.
In previous blog posts, I checked to see if I could beat the Times's lowest airfares and each time I've done so, I've found cheaper (much cheaper) airfares from Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) to Tokyo (NRT).
The airlines the Times Travel section currently cited are All Nippon (ANA), American, Delta, Japan Airlines (JAL), Singapore Airlines and United. Curiously, they did not cite Korean Air, which consistently comes in much cheaper (in my experience) than the aforementioned airlines. Interesting.
The airfare the Times gives as the lowest is $1,644.00. I found it interesting that this price for the aforementioned airlines is more expensive than the prices given for Hong Kong which is $1,394.00 - $1,574.00. These prices vary due to differing fuel surcharges on different airlines.
They use the Sabre reservation system, the airlines and the Web.
Doing my own checking (via Travelocity, Priceline, Expedia, GatewayLAX), I found the lowest round-trip airfares from LAX to NRT to be from Malaysia Airlines at $450.00 (not including taxes and fees). The second lowest round-trip price was from Singapore Airlines at $495.00 (not including taxes and fees).
If I can find these (much-lower) prices, why can't the Los Angeles Times?
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