I can fly roundtrip on Northwest Airlines from Memphis to Rapid City for $390. The trip makes one stop and changes planes in Minneapolis. (MEM -> MSP -> RAP)
If I want to fly roundtrip on Northwest Airlines, non-stop from Memphis just to Minneapolis, the ticket would cost $556. (MEM -> MSP)
This must make sense to somebody. 
You are paying for the convinience of not having a stop in between. I see your point, but if they charged less, for the flight that more people want, they’d be shooting themselves in the foot. It’s simple supply and demand economics.
So as I understand it, the plane leave Memphis and goes to Minneapolis then on to Rapid City but only makes one stop. Do you jump out in Rapid City as the plane flies overhead? 
Okay, the trip makes 2 stops, one in Minneapolis and the second one in Rapid City. I tried really hard to make this simple and to the point but there is always somebody … 
I hope the plane actually lands in Rapid City. There is probably an additional fee for landing though. 
How much, round trip, if you were to leave from a treadmill??
Sorry. It just comes from the old joke, “We say that the plane goes non-stop. We’d better hope it stops somewhere.”
when the airline goes out of biz, the rich get richer and the workers get shafted
://www.usatoday.com/travel/news/2003/2003-03-27-nwa-bonus.htm
03/27/2003 - Updated 12:19 PM ET
Northwest executives get bonuses amid layoffs and losses
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The top two executives of Northwest Airlines got large increases in their compensation in 2002, angering the union leaders the company is lobbying for wage and work rule concessions.
Chief Executive Officer Richard Anderson and President Douglas Steenland took no raise in salary but together saw their compensation climb by more than $2.5 million through bonuses and stock options that can’t be sold for years.
Anderson and Steenland each were paid salaries of $500,000 last year, unchanged from 2001. Anderson received a $250,000 bonus in 2002 and no bonus a year earlier. Steenland got a $200,000 bonus last year and no bonus in 2001.
The bulk of the pay for both executives came from options on stock that cannot be sold for years and would require the shares to rise in value in order for Anderson and Steenland to profit. But Northwest in 2002 made that prospect easier by lowering the price the stock would have to reach in order to exercise the options.
The details of executive compensation, revealed in the airline’s proxy statement filed Wednesday with the Securities and Exchange Commission, drew caustic reactions from union leaders representing Northwest employees facing a fresh round of job cuts, wage reductions and benefit concessions. Many said the rising pay of executives will undermine the call for sacrifice from employees.
“To me it’s obscene,” said Mollie Reiley, trustee of Local 2000 of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, representing flight attendants. “I thought this was a company in trouble. This is not about we’re all in this together. It’s about us working to pay them.”
Other union leaders echoed the theme. “It’s going to be obvious that here we are a company that’s fighting for its life and expecting to have employees pay their way through while the rich get richer,” said Bobby DePace, president of District 143 International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers.
Jim Atkinson, president of the Local 33 of the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association, termed the compensation gains of the top officers in Northwest’s executive suite “immoral.”
Gary Helton, interim secretary-treasurer of the Professional Flight Attendants Association, which is seeking to represent Northwest flight attendants, said the executive pay is, “in a word, ludicrous.”
Northwest’s recent announcement of plans to cut 4,900 jobs will bring the airline’s worldwide employment to 39,000, down from 53,500 at the end of the year 2000.
Wow, an article from 2003! I didn’t look it up, but I don’t think those guys made out too well on their stock options.
Everyone seems to think that if you paid your executives a little less (say half) that there’d be enough to give everyone else a raise they’d notice. Those two guys’ total 2002 compensation wouldn’t even be enough to buy a little jet. These days it would probably be a month’s supply of fuel (for that jet).
The leaders of corporations don’t do the same job as the flight attendants and mechanics. They have to make decisions every day that affect the futures of all the flight attendants, all the mechanics, and everyone else in the corporation. It’s quite a mental load.
For flights to Rapid City from Sacramento we had similar experiences. No direct flights available, and price seems to be related to popularity of a route. Or time. The cheapest flights are usually the ones that leave at 6:00am. Like the one we picked. 