Airfares to Europe?

I may be misunderstanding your post but you seem to be comparing current one-way fares, with prior round-trip fares. If so, that could explain it. One way fares on US airlines have traditionally been way more than half of a one way fare. What is your starting point?

Did you try pricing a round trip and consider throwing away the return portion. There are lots of very cheap fares to Europe even into May

Last I checked, which was a week or so ago, airfares to Europe were the lowest I'd seen in many years. For example, under $400 round trip Boston to Lyon or Geneva.

Only certain budget airlines have good pricing for one-way fares. You should start by looking at round-trip fares first. What city are you flying from? If you're not near an airport with a lot of competition for flights to Europe, then consider if it's worth the drive to one that is more competitive (e.g. Atlanta, Charlotte, Houston, etc.). Don't know where you are in the "Deep South", so answer that first. Yes, the fares you're getting are too high, but not surprising for a one-way trip (that's how legacy airlines discourage one-way trips). Look at non-legacy or budget carriers as well (if they fly from where you are).

I agree with Robert; there are trans-Atlantic bargains at last. But not one-way. Anyhow, you have to be able to prove that you will go home, or immigration may not let you in. And some carriers won't let you on the originating flight without a clear means of exit from the destination country. If you are seeking a way to save money, use a multi-destination search function on an Internet travel agency site or even some airlines.
Why are there bargains? Excess capacity, especially out of Canada. Number of seat available went up this summer but for one reason or another (including, perhaps, security fears) demand did not rise to fill them.

Why are you pricing one way?

There are certain airlines that are OK for this IF you need to fly one way. Otherwise, it is MUCH cheaper to book round trip or Multi-city ( for open jaw trips).

People have been finding fares under $1000 for RT travel in May and October on some routes.

Well it's good to hear that the most probable answer is that I was simply not searching in a manner that yields best results. The trip outline is; 1) fly from Atlanta to Frankfurt, 2) meander about Europe by train for a couple of weeks and 3) Fly out of Paris back to Atlanta.

I'll give it another try tomorrow.

But I still find it puzzling that searching the Air France website for an Atlanta to Paris one way fare results in a $2700 ticket and from Paris to Tokyo one way results in an $800 ticket...

Bruce, don't even try to understand airline pricing, it'll just give you a headache. It is what it is, but if you know how to search you can find the best prices. Try skycanner.com putting in multi-city Atlanta to Frankfurt and Paris to Atlanta with your dates and see what you come up with. I tried some dummy dates and there are non-stop flights with good flight times on Airfrance from Atlanta to Frankfurt and Paris to Atlanta for around $1300. You can check around other sites and Airfrance's website to see if there's better fares for those flights. There are also flights for under $800 if you don't mind 2 or 3 stops and long flight times but to me that's just nor worth the savings.

But I still find it puzzling that searching the Air France website for an Atlanta to Paris one way fare results in a $2700 ticket and from Paris to Tokyo one way results in an $800 ticket...

These two routes have nothing to do with each other, so it's not helpful to compare. The pricing on every route is based on demand and a bunch of other variables, including whether other airlines are competing on that route. Each airline has sophistical yield management software that manipulates pricing constantly to maximize profit. There are seemingly impossibly priced flights to/from origins and destinations which have a lot of competition - it's not a surprise that airlines will price-match other airlines on certain flights. On others, they simply don't need to do that because they have a monopoly position. Plus, the price you see today is only what you see today - it will change many, many, many times until May 2017. You are not flying to some small city from another small city that gets a small number of travelers - you should be able to get a decent fare. I wouldn't expect a good fare, say from Asheville to Dubrovnik (random example), but you're going to two very large European hubs with lots of flights. You can even try Turkish Air out of Atlanta - their prices are very good most of the time (I've paid less than $800 round-trip).

It sounds like you should search for a multi-city (same as "open jaw") fare, at least the way you described it.

I am seeing open jaw ATL to CDG and FRA to ATL early May for a 2-week trip all non-stops of $1323 on Delta.

Airlines are making their money these days on flights to Europe, not Asia, which is 90% business travelers with a lot of competition.

I see that roundtrips to Paris are about $300 cheaper than roundtrips to Frankfurt in early May. It isn't always like that, and it might switch around in a few days, but at the moment it's the Frankfurt destination that's driving the cost up. It's definitely worth playing around with different dates and other nearby airports, just to see whether a great deal pops up. Frankly, I'm surprised the fares are that high from Atlanta. Perhaps there will be another round of fare-cutting soon.

If that price differential holds, I'd very seriously consider a RT to Paris accompanied by an advance-purchase (non-refundable/non-changeable) train ticket from Paris to Frankurt or vice versa. Bought when tickets go on sale, the rail fare can be as low as 39 euros, based on what I'm seeing on the Deutsche Bahn website. The trip takes less than 4 hours city center to city center.

Bruce: I seldom really see any deals out of Atlanta to Europe. The very best deals are often out of NYC, Boston and sometimes Boston. Have you checked to see what Clark Howard says?

Our last two trips to Europe (last year) were out of Orlando on Norwegian Air Shuttle (Norwegian.com). I got their email this morning, and found Spring airfares at around $500 round trip in and out of London Gatwick. EasyJet can get you to virtually any popular European city very inexpensively from Gatwick. Norwegian also flies to Oslo where they could connect you to other European cities on their domestic flights.

We've been looking into going out of Huntsville into Dublin, and TripMasters.com has been quoting $1100 for round trip flights, rooms for 7 days and a rental car for 6 days. They also book trips all over the continent at comparable prices. Dunhill Travel also has comparable fares. You might can get hotels included and a rental car for the price of a flight alone out of Atlanta.

I seldom really see any deals out of Atlanta to Europe.

I would think that Turkish Air getting into the airline market in Atlanta would affect other carriers in the same way that Southwest has in many airports (in my experience Southwest has been good for fliers, even for those who don't fly it, because it makes the others compete on price). There are folks that wouldn't fly Turkish Air for many reasons (don't know it, don't trust it, don't like the long layovers, whatever...) but other carriers still have to compete with its pricing. Delta has had a monopoly in Atlanta for a long time. Hopefully that's changing.

Have you priced an "open-jaws" ticket - Atlanta to Frankfurt & Paris to Atlanta? If so, what did you find for that price?

If you are looking for the best airfare I wouldn't be locked into Frankfurt or Paris.

Atlanta is an expensive busy city to fly through. Turkish air is bringing prices down, but flying with an infant, to much airport time will become a problem.

To you and I there is no reason for air fare changes but they do and reward someone who keeps constant tabs on them. Keep an eye on Clarkhoward.com and here for prices. Also, it may pay to empty your cookies before searching. Set your price point and if the flight comes available buy it. My wife and I said if we saw anything under $900 for Vienna for a two week trip to purchase it and we did. But we also had an eye on other places. We will go to Vienna this trip and the other place later.

On Kayak, I saw May 3rd departure with stay of two week, into Fra out of CDG at $689 for Hacker Fares and $787 on Turkish Air. A bit better than my $787 to Vienna. But both are good fares to Europe. May is typically cheaper. Kayak and several other sites will let you put i a city pair and keep an eye on price trends.

My round trip flight to Milan was $`932. My flight into Frankfurt and out of Munich was $1232. My wife is a teacher so we are limited to Summer travel, therefore higher prices. For our engagement trip, I was able to add a departure from Venice and bring the whole price down $250 each ticket.

Unusual, but it happens.

Absolute simplest piece of advice - do not book one way tickets to/from Europe. Use the multi-city search feature and book it all on one ticket. Into one place, out of another.

For whatever reason booking 2 one ways is often much, much more than a round trip with the same cities and dates.

One way is a luxury for when you are willing to pay to leave your exit time/place flexible.

I live in a small city where the only destinations offered from the local airport are Atlanta, Dallas and Houston. I refuse to fly United unless absolutely impossible to avoid, so that leaves Dallas and Atlanta as my possible jump-off points for international flights. Given that I'm already taking 1 hop to get Atlanta or Dallas I am very cool to the idea of making another jump to a Boston or New York for the absolute best price - and frankly 'she who must be obeyed' is absolutely frosty about the idea...

We flew out of Stuttgart coming home a couple of years ago and it was a pleasant enough airport - I'll give it another look.

Just checked Delta into Stuttgart and out of Paris for our dates using the 'multi-city' search option and the price was $1150 - which is just fine. I could have sworn that I tried that yesterday, but I am getting old....

Thanks to all for the various suggestions! Just operator error I guess :-)

There are very good reasons to fly direct from North America to Europe and if you have to change planes there to get to where you want to go, so be it.

BTW, a few times in my flight searches I screw up and get prices going the other way, Europe to US and back. They are paying about 25% less to fly on the exact same planes as we are. Check it out. The reason we pay what we do is that the airlines have figured out that we can and will.

Your open jaw cities are perfectly viable cabdidates for low cost airfares. The $400 fares that another person posted about from last week are gone. There are however still deals to be had. Go to google flights and put in your search criteria. It will bring up all the airilines. Then set up an alert for your itinerary and then they will email you daily when that flight changes price. Once you see a price you're happy with.....book it!

This is just my experience, my flights are generally higher because I don't live near a large hub or big city. I have to fly out of Tulsa, OK with choices to Chicago, Denver, Dallas, Houston, or Atlanta and sometimes having to go even another stop somewhere on the East Coast. Plus I only have American, Delta, United (international) Southwest (domestic) are my only choices. I plugged in my June 2017 trip this summer and it is $1,461.56 right now( RT) I have a mileage card, so this trip was used with mileage. Plus we are tall and I like to pay the extra money to get extra leg room for those long 6+ travel time. But that is my choice. I don't think I have ever been lucky to get sale prices under $1,000 on any of my trips the past 6 years. So savor those cheap prices!

Happy travels