Texas in your travel plans? Use Houston's Bush Intercontinental Airport and you'll face the highest average domestic airfare in the country: $477. Fly from the city's Hobby Airport—29 miles away—and you'll find one of the lowest average fares in the country: $299.

Pricing airline tickets is much like a rug bazaar, where the airlines try to get as much as they can out of each passenger. An analysis of fares compiled by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics shows that in the end, the lack of low-fare competition and presence...