Empty planes push up prices
The cost of flying to Saturday's AFL grand final has soared because airlines have been forced to bring almost empty planes to Perth to take fans to Melbourne.
Some planes will only be carrying passengers from Perth to Melbourne before returning to Sydney.
Planes are extremely expensive to operate. It costs about $90,000 to charter a Perth-based 97-seat Fokker 100 for the return flight to Melbourne.
To hire a Boeing 737 costs about $150,000 for the return flight. For a 747, the hourly direct flying cost is about $30,000 an hour.
The demand for flights has been unprecedented in the history of WA aviation.
An armada of 86 scheduled and charter flights will today start to take tens of thousands of Dockers fans to Melbourne.
Almost every direct flight to Melbourne is full.
Fans are also getting to Melbourne on an additional 79 flights via Sydney, Adelaide, Canberra and Brisbane.
Almost all of these services are sold out.
Seats were also heavily sold on Air New Zealand's service to Auckland with connections back to Melbourne.
Other fans have taken flights via Singapore and Kuala Lumpur to get to the grand final.
