Last minute flight from London to Hong Kong £639 (12 hours)
Last minute flight from Zurich to Helsinki £650 (2 hours 45 mins)

WHY????????????????

cause they can

Because they have to drag your £ all the way to the bank to exchange them to CHF..?


and why is a travel agent in Switzerland charging airfares in £ and not CHF..??

skyscanner.com gives me everything in £

smaller numbers make my blood boil less

Go check a US based site.
The exchange rate now is so good, you may benefit by quite a good margin
We just booked 2 return flights to JFK for 1,100 CHF,
A real baragain. We used expedia.com (not .uk or .de) to take full advantage.

It might also depend what booking classes are left. The HK flight might not be full so you can find cheaper seats in Economy. The Helsinki flight might be full to the gunnels in Economy with just the expensive "Y" class Economy seats left.

Tscha! And the price of caviar these days, too...

How many people fly from Zurich to Helsinki compared to from London to Hong Kong? Economies of scale etc.

I had to fly to the UK last minute recently. The cheapest way was via Norway.

Supply and demand. They charge what they can get away with.

That's a mere coincidence. Fares for a given flight can vary by 60% in the course of a single day and change within minutes. For my trip to Michigan in a month, I searched all US agencies available and eventually booked with a Swiss firm. It was not only the cheapest offer but also the one with the best connections. Last trip USA won, the trip before another Swiss company etc..

You have to look around everywhere and assess every detail before you make a decision. Flight fares are a matter of luck. The guy on the seat next to you may have paid one third of what you did or four times as much. You never know.

__________________

"This is AMAZING! I have the exact amount of money Joe Biden has cost us playing golf in my sweatpants pocket!" — Kona Lowell

Exactly. Many many years ago my mom flew TWA from SFO to ZHR and back in July/August. I then book in October/November the same airlines with the same flight numbers and even flew the same day of the week but despite my flying in very off season my ticket was double what she had paid for hers. When I asked the airlines about this discrepancy they said it was all about market pricing, I was starting my journey from Switzerland where people earned considerably more money.

I wasn't able to reproduce your prices. Got much less. Perhaps you searched for a one way flight? It's usually cheaper to get a return ticket and discard the second leg, if it's impossible to use.
Then fares are often constructed to be cheaper if you stay over the weekend (must include Saturday and Sunday). Finally - flying out of ZRH is expensive, as simple as that.

I'd rather fly to Hong Kong anyway :-).

What's the breakdown i.e. how much is flight and how much is tax? Could be that London and HK have lower taxes than Finland and CH.

As opposed to taking the train?

I disagree - might be quite interesting, taking the Siberia Express and then on to Beijing, Shanghai.... Hong Kong.

OK, might take a few hours longer

I can also admit that these flight companies/dealers have a tracking to see what 'hot and popular' flights are being searched through different internet sites (i.e. Hotwire, Expedia...etc.) As soon as they see a flight being searched for, they raise the prices a bit to either scare you into hurrying up and buying it at that price or getting a little bit more money out of the bargain. The wonderful world of consumerism...

Always suspected that - thanks for confirming this.
Supply + demand, simples.

Because the most expensive parts are the landing and taking off, and airport fees.

Relatively speaking the rest is cheap.