I was talking to a friend of mine this afternoon who was thinking of going to Brazil to visit a former coworker of ours.  He was using Travelocity to look for flights and came across something weird.  He lives in Grapevine, but has family in Chicago, so he was evaluating both Chicago (ORD) and DFW as departure points.  If you try to book from Chicago (ORD) to Sao Paulo (GRU), you can get fares as low as $525 with one stop, which happened to be at DFW when he searched (subsequent searches show several other options for stops, with DFW being included).  However, if you book out of DFW to GRU the direct fare is $1024.  What’s odd about it is that it appears that the direct flight is simply the second leg of the ORD-GRU flight.  It sure seems like a huge premium to pay for a direct flight.

In fact, looking on AA.com, the best price from DFW to GRU right now is $705 for a flight with two stops (DFW-ATL-MIA-GRU)*.  I can’t help but think that the Wright Amendment has something to do this.  One of the common complaints about DFW is that flights are often more expensive there because it’s the only choice for long-haul flights due to the Wright Amendment. 

* The criteria he used when searching:  1 adult fare, flexible dates between 2/1/06 and 2/20/06, ten night stay