Hi.
I've been looking at flights and it seems that flying back from Lisbon to Stansted is way cheaper (up to 3 or 4 times) than the return flight from Stansted to Lisbon.
This is for the same dates even.
I just dont understand why
Even a "rip off Brits" conspiracy theory doesnt hold water as they and portugues and us go both ways anyway.
Surely airporf tax differences cant make up differences of 25 to 120 quid?
Does anyone know why its like this?

Maybe I should just get a one way ticket to uk.
I wish

Supply and demand.

Thats seems strange to me
So far more people are flying into Uk on that route than coming back?
Surely those prices dont result from Ryanair being a main immigration route? (Just to point out that I consider myself an immigrant)
Also, the flights are always simularly full both ways, although that is me being anecdotal
It just seems like a symetrical system both ways to me
But if it is supply and demand then I guess that is implicit in my question anyway - why is demand much higher in one direction?
Or is it thqt they have more flights in one direction? (Different routes?)

Different airport taxes, fuel taxes landing fees, lots of reasons. Eve flying a light aircraft Shoreham to Southend used to be about a third more tan flying home.

I think that the airlines have become more sophisticated in their pricing - it's still effectively supply and demand but on a day by day, even hour by hour basis and using historical buying behaviour and modelling. Of course this could be complete carp. There was a time when you could play chicken with the flight prices which dropped as you got nearer to the departure date - time it right and you got the best price or get it wrong and either pay a little more or miss getting a ticket. Now, in general terms, booking early gets the best price - almost empty flight.

I've not checked recently but the breakdown of airport taxes etc used to be given.

I always book a one way trip (which ever is cheaper) then clear cookies and book the other leg.Seems to work out okay.If you book a return one leg will always be more expensive than the other

It may be specific to the date and/ or time of day. Certainly "supply and demand" is not set at the route level. Peak times for travel are early morning and late afternoon on any one day, and Friday and Sunday over the week, and then obviously around holidays such as during the summer months, and at Christmas. .... So the last Friday before Christmas, around 4pm-6pm, may have the highest ticket prices of the year. Generally Tuesdays and Wednesdays have cheaper flights than other days.

In the US return flights are typically booked as two separate legs, and you see a price for the round trip based on the outward leg. So if you focus on a low price for the outward leg, then most return legs will have an additional charge associated with them to reflect higher demand for tickets at the time of the return flight, You have to fly at off-peak hours in the return leg to avoid that additional charge.

mistake made!

Conspiracy theory stuff now ! Assuming you are in Portugal, have you tried getting a quote for the UK to PT journey using a VPN that places you in UK ? (Or asked a friend already there to login and get the info for you?)

good idea - I'll have to make sure no cookies / tracking as well tho
Not sure how to do that as I dont want to delete all cookies and not sure how to ensure I manually delete ALL relevant ones
perhaps private tab?
I use FF on Linux and Windoze

Try using Brave as your browser instead of Chrome or whatever you use. Tracking and cookies are switched off by default but you can switch them on for selected sites.

Yes, these are also my findings, regardless of UK to Portugal or vice versa. Sometimes we have booked one way with one carrier and the return with another.

When we lived in Italy we often flew out of Pisa and had the choice of BA(too expensive) Ryan Air and Easy jet.We often used one or both depending on price but always a one way ticket

Sometimes a cheaper one way can be obtained by taking the journey in more than one stop. This also provides opportunities of having a town or city break along the way.

I believe one can see the fare breakdown into airport taxes, etc at s stage in the Ryan air booking process. And/or in the confirmation email.