I need to travel to Tallahassee, Florida from Southern California. When I didn’t find a decent connection from San Diego, I tried Ontario, an airport conveniently located for us as an alternate. Here is what it came up with:

1292 07:55 AM ONT 12:53 PM DFW	$854	$1458	$2997	$2422	$4000
2459   04:50 PM DFW 05:55 PM LAX
1254   09:15 PM LAX 05:18 AM MIA
4516   07:20 AM MIA 08:40 AM TLH

I get to fly out of Ontario at 7:55 in the morning, go to Dallas, spend 5 hours at the airport,  only to fly back to LAX so I can leave again from LAX, 100 miles west of Ontario, to go to Miami on the red eye. Heck, I could drive to LAX in the evening and park my car there and get there a day faster.

And if I were to book a first class ticket, it would cost $4,000 for the privilege of being caught in airline hell for a full 24 hours.

Here is an example of an automated system going completely amuck.