British Airways -- Incredible Airfares?

Cruising Trip Advisor today (3/11/14) I came across this ad in the left hand column.

Ok, I thought, let's see what they think is "incredible".  According to dictionary.com it means "so extraordinary as to seem impossible". That's something to try to live up to, eh? As my main port for flying is Seattle, WA I decided to try airfares from there. Generally prices to major cities in Europe have averaged around $1,100 round-trip, economy fare, with one suitcase included, 51 lbs. max. I clicked on "Book now" to check it out.  Even though it said INCREDIBLE, I'm becoming cynical regarding ads any more because they seem to stretch the truth farther and farther just to get you to look at them. But I digress.

I chose London Heathrow (after all, this was a Britain ad), and picked a month out, with a one-week stay.  I picked Tuesday for a departure day, as it is one of the cheaper days. It turned out it was a British Airways site, which did have a highlighted "lowest price" listed among the various choices for flying to London.

Response time was good, and I then selected "lowest price" as a first priority, then shortest flying time as a second. Here's what came back:

The flight over wasn't bad (around $600), but the flight back was in the $900 range. So the number above was the cheapest. So sad. I was feeling misled. 

A second page mentioned a "generous baggage allowance". Upon further inspection that meant the standard 51lbs. suitcase and the one carry-on.  I thought maybe there were some large taxes and fees that drove up the price.  So I looked at them.  Here they are:

So the governments want $235 of the total, about 16%. A bit high, but not outlandish.  But BA had a second charge on there--a "Carrier Imposed Fee" of over $450. I've heard it described as a fuel surcharge, but I've also seen other airlines that have this carrier fee AND a fuel surcharge.  And let's face it, oil is not going back down to $70/bbl or whatever it takes to dump the fuel surcharge. So why is this $450 on there? Maybe it helps to keep the taxes down by calling it a fee. The fee doesn't seem to be applied when booking reward travel, but I'm not an expert on BA rewards.
And it appears they credit full flyer miles for travel in economy, unlike Lufthansa which now offers around 25% of actual miles flown. Of course $300 in higher fares (over the competition) at $.02/mi should be worth 15,000 miles.

Still the prices didn't seem all that INCREDIBLE to me. I decided to use my handy rule-of-thumb calculator. A good airline should be able to fly you at a cheapest rate of $.10/mile (known as CASM in the industry). Long-hauls are cheaper, because they have only one takeoff (which is what eats up fuel) and one landing (which means fewer landing fees). How did BA do on this measure? 

Indo.com has long had a mileage calculator for the mileage between two points on the globe.  Here's what it had to say about SEA to LON.

So a round trip would be about 9,600 miles--total cost should be around $960. Tack on $240 in govt. fees and you end up at $1200. What about other airlines?

From Kayak.com same day one-stops from Seattle to London Heathrow:

Iberia  - $1089
Air Canada - $1263
United - $1281

And non-stops?

Virgin - $1409
Delta - $1441
BA - $1901 -- yes $1901--our flight above involves a one-stop in Chicago on the way back.

No thanks, BA, these prices are NOT incredible.