Cheaper flights by transiting via a hub

I recently made several trips to London and as usual trying to find the balance between schedule, comfort and cost is always a challenge.

Owing to myself being based in Singapore and my wife in KL we have a degree of flexibility over where we fly from. After checking the availability for flights to leave around 12 or 13 March we surprisingly found that Singapore Airlines ex KUL had a great fare RM3311 each.

This was actually cheaper than the middle eastern airlines, a fraction cheaper than Air Asia X and significantly cheaper than Malaysia Airlines who wanted approx. RM5200.

For my 1st trip I chose Singapore Airlines becuase of their fantastic product at that price it was a no brainer and for the 2nd trip I chose Emirates becuase of schedule and cost.

Regular travellers will know that typically if you book a ticket that involves transiting through the airlines home hub then the tickets are usually much cheaper. In the case of Singapore Airlines it worked out to be SGD700-800 cheaper per person.

Some examples based on tickets in May and June are displayed below. The examples for each airline are airline are in identical flights for the long haul sector eg both comparisons for the Malaysia Airlines are using MH4 and MH1 for the long haul flights.

A good example of this is in Europe using BA to JFK and transiting through London (price in GBP)

British Airways
Class of travel	Ex London	ex Milan	Saving
Economy	£573	£551	£22
Business	£2537	£1738	£799

Closer to home Malaysia Airlines also operate in a similar way when flying through KL (price in SGD)

Malaysia Airlines
Class of travel	Ex KL	ex Singapore	Saving
Economy	$2310	$1227	$1083
Business	$8731	$6629	$2102

A check of Singapore Airlines fares in May also shows a similar trend. Singapore Airlines fares are usually a little cheaper ex Singapore in two people travel together (price in SGD)

Singapore Airlines
Class of travel	Ex Singapore	ex KL	Saving
Economy	$2396	$1753	$643
Business	$8407	$6837	$1570

Having travelled on Emirates I couldn't possibly have left them out. A trend to note is that Emirates seem to be cheaper ex Singapore than KL. Perhaps this is due to the market at Changi being more competitive than at KLIA. A quick check of BA’s fares show their economy tickets cheaper than Emirates and the business class tickets around SGD 600 more.

Emirates
Class of travel	Ex KL	ex Singapore	Saving by flying from Changi
Economy	$1953	$1680	$273
Business	$7632	$6810	$822

Many people can benefit from deals like this and for those that like to fly business class it can result in much cheaper fares although they are still a significant amount of money to pay especially if two people are travelling.

Another point to note is that good competition tends to bring down prices hence the cheaper fares from Singapore.