Lufthansa, Swiss and Brussels Airlines Launch Fare Sale on Chicago (ORD) to Madrid (MAD) Route

A new fare sale on Lufthansa, Swiss and Brussels Airlines has the airlines offering round-trip tickets from Chicago to Madrid for only $700.

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Dakota Smith - Tue Jan 27 2015

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A July 8 fare sale by Star Alliance partner airlines, Lufthansa, Swiss and Brussels Airlines, has seen the airlines slash fares on the Chicago to Madrid route by 35%. Round-trip tickets between the two cities are now selling for approximately $700, which is $366 less than the average fares on the route as reported in Hopper’s Chicago-Madrid when to fly and buy report.

The fare sale began at 6 p.m. on July 8, as the sales teams at the airlines manually lowered prices to increase demand on the route. Neither Lufthansa, Brussels Airlines or Swiss rank in the top seven airlines serving the Chicago to Madrid route with stops, according to Hopper’s technical report on the route.

Fares have remained low through the end of July 9, and the data scientists at Hopper expect the fare sale to last anywhere from 3-7 days – though only the airlines know for certain. The tickets currently on sale all include departure dates in August, September or October, so only travelers looking to fly within the next three months will be able to benefit from the cheap tickets.

All three airlines participating in the fare sale offer connecting flights from Chicago to Madrid, with fliers on Brussels Airlines transiting through Brussels, Lufthansa fliers in Frankfurt and Swiss fliers in Zurich. Lufthansa, however, offers the quickest connecting route to Madrid, of the three, with a total travel time from Chicago of only 13.5 hours – a direct flight is 9 hours and 40 minutes.

Several airlines offer direct flights between Chicago and Madrid – American, Finnair, British Airways, Iberia and US Airways – but none are offering fare sales at the moment. The average cost of a direct flight between the two cities is anywhere from $1,085 to $1,135, about 35% more expensive than the flights on sale from Lufthansa, Swiss and Brussels Airlines.

"This Star Alliance fare sale is a really great deal for travelers looking to fly to Europe in the next few months, as these are the cheapest tickets we’ve seen quoted by any airline on the Chicago to Madrid route in months," said Patrick Surry, Hopper’s chief data scientist, when asked to provide context to the fare sale. "I wouldn’t expect fares on the route to drop this low again for at least a few months."

Fare sale details

-Airlines participating in fare sale: Lufthansa, Swiss and Brussels-Start of fare sale: July 8-Fare sale length: TBD, don't expect the sale to last longer than one week-Conditions: Departure dates are available in August, September and October-Airfare savings: 35% lower than the average price according to Hopper’s flight report on Chicago-Madrid

Examples of itineraries recently found by fliers

-$696 round-trip between Chicago and Chicago on Swiss, Oct 6 to Oct 13-$699 round-trip between Chicago and Chicago on Lufthansa, Oct 1 to Oct 13-$701 round-trip between Chicago and Chicago on Lufthansa, Sep 16 to Sep 25- See all

About Hopper Research

The research team at Hopper uses data drawn from a combined feed of Global Distribution System (GDS) data that includes 10 million flight price queries per day, containing about one billion individual trips per day, to provide insights on airline pricing to consumers.